Once Upon a Floor

Once upon a time there was a floor... in a little house... in the kitchen.

This is the story of how it was transformed to this...

from this...

In 1994 a newly married couple (me and Husband) moved into a little white abode and discovered...


10-ft ceilings!

2 fireplaces! 

A grand front porch! 

Old windows and door frames!

Generous rooms to fill with our dreams!

And... a rather alarming sight upon our kitchen floor.

It was... a carpet of many colors.

My husband said, "It looks like rows and rows of ants marching in lines while carrying different colored flags." 

That pretty much sums it up.

Underneath the marching rainbow ants we found squares of 1950's linoleum.

You know the variety... taupe with little flecks of turquoise, yellow, white and black.
Oh wait... I think the black is just dirt.

Husband was convinced that a "hard" floor of any type would be cold and well... hard. 
So we opted for carpet.  The first installation was pale blue. Several years later it was NASTY... remember we're talking CARPET in a KITCHEN.

So we replaced it with a nice shade of green.

Once again time took its toll... the green wasn't so nice anymore and we began making funeral arrangements for the quickly fading mass of green.

I began to think of options.  Carpet cremation was top of the list.

Husband hadn't changed his view... but 18 years had passed and the reality of CARPET in the KITCHEN had at least put a chink in his armor. (insert evil laugh here)

What I really wanted was original wood flooring, but without the mess, expense, or stress of installing and refurbishing a perfectly beautiful pristine formal wood flooring.  Don't get me wrong... I LOVE the look of a pristine glossy oak floor... but my reality does not coexist with this level of perfection.

The horror stories I have heard of refinishing a wood floor also sent chills down my spine!  Dust in the whole house... the sanding process creating hills and valleys in the surface... fumes... disaster... and certain destruction and mayhem!

Then... I had an epiphany!

Wood Floors + Paint

If I install old reclaimed wood floors then I could just do a light sanding to take the sheen of varnish off the top and roll on some black paint... then scuff it up... distress it... If it got too distressed and beat up... I could just slap a new coat of paint on!

Paint solves everything!

I had 2 things working in my favor:

1) I have a Colorado Dad who knows how to lay flooring.

2) I found a company in Dallas who rescues things from old houses ready for demolition and salvages... door knobs and mantles and toilets and cabinets... and of course wood floors.  They had MORE than enough square footage for my kitchen at $1.87 a square foot! That is a bargain folks! Some of my other options were up to $12 a square foot! 

I had one more obstacle... Husband.

I called ready to go into all the gory details.

You know what he said?

"Honey, just do it"

Seriously?

I love that man.

I enlisted the moral support of 2 friends from work and we spent our lunch hour driving over to the Discount Home Warehouse (a terribly boring name for a magical place filled with objects that have lived previous lives). I then proceeded to sweet talk/bully the proprietor into helping me load 150 square feet of flooring into my mini-van. 

You can visit this warehouse at http://www.dhwsalvage.com/... but trust me the website doesn't do it justice!  If you're in the DFW area and love old things... it's worth your time to stop and look at their ever changing inventory.

So the big day came!  I took a day off from work, sent the kids off to school and tore in! Colorado Dad and Husband pulled up the green fuzzy mass to reveal purple padding.

 

We set up a carpentry workshop on the front porch...

Measured twice (or three times)... and cut once!

And I happily watched the new (old) floor begin to emerge.

I'd like to say the transformation included nothing except a magical wand... but in reality it took four of us (me, Husband, Colorado Mom and Dad) every minute from dawn...
til the clock struck midnight...
to get the full installation accomplished. 
Because we were using reclaimed wood... some of the pieces already had been cut on one end... so we had to sort the wood into 3 sections. 

• Northerners (these were planks cut on the "Northern" end)

• Southerners (planks cut on the Southern end)

• Pacifists (planks that had not been previously cut)

We needed to use as many planks as possible without making additional cuts... so it was definitely a puzzle.  In the end we didn't have near enough Southerners, so some of the Pacifists had to be persuaded over the Mason Dixon Line.

The end result was amazing!

Once the floor was installed... it was so beautiful!  The thought of haphazardly rolling on black paint made me pause to consider other possibilities.  I still didn't want a "perfect" high gloss wood floor... plus with pine cabinets there was waaaaayy too much wood going on. 

Then... a compromise began to form in my mind... paint still colored my vision... but with some of the floor showing through. 

With a hand sander I took off the "shine" from the top of the floor... got out my chalk and started sketching in a design. I taped an offset "square" in the middle of the room where I planned to paint in a "monogram".   In the image below you can see the taped area...the sketching in chalk and the first few painted black swirls going in.

Next I traced the chalk lines with black paint. Once the swirls were complete, I then shaded inside some of the curves to create a look of age and depth.

Here is a view from the other direction.

The contrast was a little too dramatic (even for me)... so I diverted from my original plan and covered the entire floor (except for that middle area where the monogram was going to be placed) and stained it with a darker hue.  I personally like the stain over the black paint because, again it adds "age" and layers.

This was really the step I had not wanted to get into... because the stain was quite smelly and even though it was "dry" by the morning... it required a 72 hour drying period before you could move to the next step.The fumes were quite bad and that first morning I woke up with a fierce headache after a night of fitful dreams.  I opened doors, windows and turned the fans up on high... definitely need some ventilation boys and girls... if you're going to try this at your own home.

Now... Time for the monogram!

Since we live on a farm and often have wheat in the field surrounding our home... I decided to start with some wheat sprigs... not sure sprigs is the technical term... but you get the idea.

Next I taped off the "M" for Merrifield. 
The stars and stripes paper plate is acting as my palette.

And here's the final product.  

At the very end I brushed back over the entire surface with a satin water based varnish (3 coats with plenty of drying time in between). I chose this finish because I didn't want the high gloss look.  I have to say I love the final result. 
It is imperfect, artistic and different than anything I've ever seen.
I don't excessively worry about scuffing it up... and if it gets some wear and tear so much the better.

Me and my new... old... swirled... painted... shabby... gaudy... elegant... wood floor
are living happily ever after!

One more note about my Prince Charming. 

He actually admits that he kind of likes the new floor... and has been caught (on more than one occasion) sliding  across the surface in his stocking feet. 

So it really is a happy ending!  Or actually a happy beginning...