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March 26, 2009
Restoring and replacing floors
Does anyone know of a wood floor expert who can advise us how we can work with what we have? We are in the middle of a major renovation of a 4 family brownstone and currently working on the parlor floor. After removing layers of linoleum we uncovered beautiful parquet floors with 6 inch “slats” with mahogany/cheer inlay border. Unfortunately the floors are missing in about 10’x6’ feet worth of space. We are not looking for perfection just options for a solution on repairing and/or replacing old brownstone parquet floors.
Comments
Also wondering myself if anyone has had any experience with someone stripping and restaining these rather thin floors that can't be sanded again?
Posted by: daveinbedstuy at March 26, 2009 1:10 PM
I used a company called Mr. Sandless to refinish our entire apartment before we moved in last year and really liked the results - they even pulled some pretty bad water stains out of the wood floors in our kitchen. I am having them come do some repair work under our radiators where the wood is rotting out and needs to be replaced. I went back to them because they did such a good job on the refinishing, but they are doing the repair work next week so I can't really speak to that yet. Still, may be worth giving them a call. The guy's name is Matt - 718-715-4800. You can email me if you have more specific questions about what they did.
Posted by: jenludovici at March 26, 2009 1:19 PM
Verrazano Flooring
Phone: 718-369-9663
My experience was awesome them. Get an estimate. A lot of my friends/neighbors have used them and I've heard nothing but good things.
Posted by: Nanook at March 26, 2009 1:46 PM
Call Verrazano. They're great with repairs and patching.
Posted by: SenatorStreet at March 26, 2009 1:49 PM
DIBS - It has been my experience that the flooring guys say that they can't be sanded anymore when in fact they have lots of life left in them.
The story is that these 5/16" floors are top nailed and the nail heads rip up the sandpaper at quite a quick pace.
So instead of changing the sandpaper twice as frequently, these guys tell you that they are too thin to sand - maybe trying to sell you on a new floor.
Where I've done repair work, I've picked up sections of the floor that I was told could not be sanded anymore and compared it to brand new flooring (of the same type - 5/16") -- they were almost identical.
The old growth, old flooring can not compare to anything that you can buy new today.
Posted by: SenatorStreet at March 26, 2009 1:56 PM
Good to know Senator Street. Thanks for that.
Posted by: TownhouseLady at March 26, 2009 2:16 PM
And if you're trying to match old flooring, the wood was cut totally differently years ago - quarter-sawn which is a much less economical use of logs than the current method. It looks quite different from new lumber because the grain shows up in a cross-cut pattern.
Posted by: Arkady at March 26, 2009 4:12 PM
Arkady - you can still easilg get quarter-sawn. The problem is that the old timbers were from 'old growth forests' -- the trees were MUCH wider in diameter.
New wood is farmed and cut at a much younger age.
Once quartered, the growth rings are much closer together on more of the resulting lumber (ie more floor boards come from closer to the center of the tree than they would had the tree been wider [older]). This is the tight grain that you are referring to.
Posted by: SenatorStreet at March 26, 2009 6:10 PM
SenSt - Yes, that's true but I also had a hard time just finding quarter sawn so the grain would match w/ my existing parquet when I was trying to replace a scorched mark in a floor that had been covered w/ carpet when I bought the house.
Posted by: Arkady at March 26, 2009 6:44 PM
I have recently finished a project during which we carefully removed and re-installed parquet. We have a fair quantity of extra material, but don't kinow if vintage is correct, maybe 1900.
Bruce
bruceatjerseydata.net
Posted by: brucef at March 26, 2009 11:23 PM
DIBS if the finish on the floors is polyurethane my understanding is that the only way to get that off is by sanding. Hopefully what SenSt said is true and sanding is fine. If it's not poly, which might be the case if the last refinishing was pre 1970s, then refinishing is a potential DIY non-sanding job. It could be shellac, shellac with wax on top, or even just a waxed stained wood. The job of removing wax, shellac, varnish, etc. does unfortunately sound like a lot of hands-and-knees work, room by room (either expensive or time consuming depending on if you're doing it yourself). I found some detailed how-to discussion in some Old House Journal editions from the 1970s that handily came with a house I bought. Polyurethane was apparently still being debated back then for use on old floors vs. traditional finishes/treatments. At least in some circles!
Posted by: BHS at March 27, 2009 1:33 PM
BHS...mine is apparently not polyurethane because the guy who stripped my fireplace stripped a small spot of the floor by mistake. That's what got me thinking in this. The biggest hassle at this point is that I'm moved in and some of the furniture is quite large.
jenludovice...is Mr. Sandless just as the name would suggest, a non sanding process?
Posted by: daveinbedstuy at March 28, 2009 9:57 AM
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