The "floor guy" came and his enthusiasm for old floors is contagious. He describes our floors as, old forest Douglas Fir, a species that can now only be found in "Fir Farms". The ring patterns tells the story of very old trees, the likes of which will never be seen again. Now Fir is an endangered species and protected, these floors are well worth saving. He thinks they will polish up beautifully and most likely creak and show their blemishes. He clearly loves his work and loves restoring old floors. All I could think of was how the first contractor we spoke to wanted to remove all of the original floors and put in new "stronger", "smoother" floors. What a terrible mistake that would have been. We could not even afford to put in the type of floors we already have it has become so expensive and rare.
The original builders (back in 1895) would have placed the floor down first and then followed with walls and rooms. So we are hoping to uncover the original footprint of the house by following the floor. It is quite an expedition we are on and each "old house restorer" we talk to gives us more enthusiasm for the adventure.
The big puzzle is the front two rooms. There has definitely been an original wall that was moved, but the original venting system seems to support the newer wall. So the "floor guy" thinks the wall has been moved twice. Once to enlarge the dining room and again to enlarge the living room. Why someone would go through that much trouble to accommodate the changing trends, we will never know. His recommendation was to remove the wall between our living and dining room entirely He says the passage is too small to be Victorian. Since it is not weight baring, we are now looking at demo-ing the wall.
Other current events: Baby "C" turned one last weekend and we are preparing "M" Court for new renters. One day we will look back and wonder how we kept so many "balls" in the air at once, but each day includes a good dose of yoga, work and grand babies and this recipe seems to keep me going.
Our neighbor's house gives us an idea of how things once were. Instead of a doorway to the attic, we probably had a built-in storage cabinet like this in the dining room.
Our neighbors also have preserved the original kitchen pantry, with the same molding and door structure as the rest of the house. We now have a stove in this space where the pantry wall was taken down.
"C" is suspicious of the orange and blue icing, " This doesn't look like food to me!"
Living/dining room divider, added in the 1960's, it is too low to be considered Victorian and makes the passage too narrow to be practical. Maybe it hides another surprise, we are considering removing it and taking our chances with the old fir flooring. If the floor is intact, we will have a wonderful expanse of old forest flooring in our living/dining room, if not, we have another problem.
Removing the wall will give us enough room for a large dining table and the opportunity to host the Christmas dinner with the entire family. Yikes, maybe the wall should stay!
Our low "imitation" Victorian wood work versus the original height and size shown from our neighbors house below. Note the distance from the picture rail to the wood beam. We may save the wood and put it back to it's original height as part of the passage to the kitchen which we envision sitting directly behind our dining room, where the mud room and guest bath is now.
Evidence of prior wall between living and dining room. Not sure if I included this in prior posts. The floor below this area will tell the story once we remove the carpet. We are waiting to remove carpet until the plaster work is done on the ceiling.
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