good bones preservation

Tackling the Century-Old Floors

For background, we began Project 1 on April 2nd, and it has been every ounce of exciting, difficult, disheartening, and amazing. This project is based in Lake Worth Beach, Florida, about 10 minutes south of West Palm Beach. The home is a 1925’s bungalow, fit with a large front porch and about 700 square feet of livable space. My plan is to ethically restore as much as possible, and add as much character back into her as what was originally intended over 100 years ago.

I had many dreams for this house, but most of all, I had a certain feeling that I wanted this house to evoke. It’s kind of like the quote, “Be so completely yourself that everyone around you feels safe to be themselves too.” If you let a home be itself, you open up the opportunity for someone else to love where they live as it was meant to be. Similarly, when we treat homes from the 1925’s like they are beautiful and useful and wonderfully made, we open up the opportunity for others to see that as well. I will always advocate for gentle understanding between homeowners, designers, and the properties that they are working on. Without understanding, all of the design and decoration and pomp will fit like uncomfortable clothes, and visitors, buyers, and guests pick up on that energy.

The first order of business was the floors.

a) Floors

The original walkthrough of this home showed us very little about the floors. We knew that there was hardwood oak throughout the living/dining rooms, but the bedrooms, kitchen, and bathroom were all covered in a cheap vinyl. To begin, we ripped off all of the vinyl flooring, praying for hardwood floors safe & beautiful underneath.

When the vinyl was up, we found that there had been a 70’s style renovation with sticker tiles all over the floors. We originally tried chipping it all up with a hammer and scraper, but after researching, we decided to use a heat gun. This allowed us to not damage as much of the floors as we would with our other method, and the sticker tile came up quite well after that.

Next, we sanded down the floors. This wood is old, warped, and uneven. It is part of the charm and I liked that the floors look as old as the house itself. It just fits right.

The floors looked absolutely gorgeous. We found some termite damage (to be expected in wood in South Florida) but nothing that could not be fixed!

Design-wise, I wanted the floors to feel like driftwood. While most old homes use dark stains on their wood floors, this home is a truly old-fashioned beach cottage. The floors needed to be as close to raw wood as possible to fulfill my vision. I decided to go with Bona Nordic-Seal, a tinted seal that gives the floors the Scandinavian look that I wanted. We did two coats of this, and two top-coats of Bona Mega Extra-Matte.

It looks incredible!

Next, we are tackling the walls. Subscribe to our site to follow along on the journey of restoring, repairing, and refinishing the walls. Keep updated in real time via Instagram!