Wednesday, October 19, 2011

So long wood

We made a lot of progress on the vinyl removal over the weekend. 
And then we saw this board, which didn't really look like the 'white oak' we were told was in here. 
Tonight a floor guy came to look at the kitchen, and before he even was two steps into the room, he told me our floor is pine.  He said the pine planks were probably never meant to be a finished floor, and the first layer of sheet material was maybe the original flooring in the kitchen. 
We also have a very significant dip in the floor at the doorway to the dining room, thanks to a cracked joist you can see in the basement. 
This has obviously caused the surrounding boards to crack and warp. 
He said he could possibly refinish the pine, but the broken boards are a problem and pine is not ideal for a finished wood floor.  It is soft, can easily ding and dent, and wouldn't wear very well in a kitchen.  Not to mention that the pine won't look the same, or take stain the same as the oak in the rest of our house.  This floor from Brooklyn Rowhouse is pine and had already been refinished, but it didn't last very long....
So now, if we want wood, we're looking at laying down new oak in the kitchen to match the rest of the first floor.  Unfortunately, we'd have to rip out the pine to make room for the new 1/4 inch plywood underlayment and 3/4 inch wood.  This is mega bucks to pay in labor, and I don't think Shaun and I are willing to DIY taking a saw to the floor and ripping it out in chunks.  I'm thinking of abandoning wood and going for something that can go over the existing floor, like period-appropriate linoleum:
{Source - inspiration for the first pic}
I know I could make it look awesome, but I'm rather sad to give up the wood floors I really wanted.  Also, linoleum is not exactly cheap and I'm not even positive we could go back over the pine.  Right now we're waiting to see what the quote is for having this floor guy rip out the pine and add new oak for us.  If that is a crazy amount, we're back to something else.  This is a sad day.   

25 comments:

  1. It will work out! Just be thankful that you have wood in the rest of your house! Can't wait to see what you choose to do!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sorry...I do like the linoleum though. Keep us posted.

    ReplyDelete
  3. :-( I hate when that happens! I acutally have been toying with the idea of period linoleum also. I found it in a chevron pattern awhile ago that sold me. It's just picking out colors now.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm sorry! That totally sucks :( when projects don't go according to plan or even a plan after another plan it totally wrinkles the mojo of the project :( I know it'll work out for you though, you always come up with something awesome!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Aw bummer! Have you thought about laminate flooring or engineered hardwood to go over it? We put a floating floor upstairs and it was a breeze to install and very affordable. I'm a hardwood snob and the Pergo even impressed me!

    ReplyDelete
  6. That Sucks! We had the same situation happen to us in a past house. I like your linoleum idea a lot! Especially those last 2 pics!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I LOVE the last picture! Love it. It would look amazing.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Argh, that's just not fair. I'm really sorry. :( I have mar oleum in my kitchen (it requires a 1/4 inch underlayment) and I love it, but it's true it's not cheap. If you can scrape together the money to have a pro put it in they guarantee it for 25 years.

    Pine floors were usually painted--I bet you could do something really beautiful going that route.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Don't give up on the hardwood yet... the stuff I laid in my bedroom was solid wood, but it was only 3/8" thick. It was the first time I had installed a floor like that, and the only thing we had to do differently was put down 1/8" luan and both glue and nail the pieces. (Also, finishing was actually really easy.)

    Could you make it work without tearing that pine up if the floor was only 1/2" thick total?

    http://www.launstein.com/flooring/white-oak.html

    ReplyDelete
  10. What a bummer! We have pine in part of our house, and is definitely not as durable as the oak. I like the linoleum look, but I totally understand how disappointing it can be when things don't go according to plan.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Sara - WAIT! I would say you can still have the pine. We had a 1920s mining house that was actually moved twice (cut in half and moved with a truck) and it had heart pine throughout. It was extremely soft but that wasn't a problem at all, even in the kitchen. We didn't stain it, we did polyurethane, but they were BEAUTIFUL!

    We did it all ourselves and had to do repairs to broken boards and also holes where old pipes were. They moved the kitchen after one of the house moving extravaganzas. I would say strongly consider keeping the pine. They are also worth money....the guys we had come and look at it offered to take the pine boards and install a new floor free because the pine was worth something. Maybe down in Florida, pine is more expensive or something?

    Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  12. the hardwood that we installed throughout our first floor was only 5/16" - we did have to put down underlayment because we wanted to run the new wood in the same direction as the old wood floor. you might be able to avoid the underlayment if you run the new wood in the opposite direction over the existing pine floor.

    but, i think you should get a second opinion about the pine, and i also like your inspiration pictures. don't give up, it sounds like you still have some options!

    ReplyDelete
  13. I love that first kitchen. Hope you are doing well.

    ReplyDelete
  14. That sucks the exact same thing happened to us with the pine and having oak floors. We ended up putting a Vinyl Allure floor right over the subfloor. It was super cheap, everyone thinks it is tile and it doesn't show dirt like at all.
    http://www.homedepot.com/buy/flooring/vinyl-resilient-flooring/trafficmaster/allure-tile-corfu-resilient-vinyl-plank-flooring-11342.

    ReplyDelete
  15. How about vinyl that looks like oak? I used Mannington Adura plank flooring recently in a bathroom and laundry room redo and people think it's the real thing! Not cheap tho, and I had to put luan plywood over my wonky subfloor to get things level.

    Love your blog!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Cork! Our cork floor is 17 years old and going strong. Warm, soft when things drop and hides dirt and pet hair like crazy. Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  17. We had the same problem. We took out a few floor boards, and then put new subfloor down, followed by vinyl flooring. Upstairs, we still have the pine, because we can't afford to redo them, yet. We painted them with porch and floor paint and love it (for now!)

    ReplyDelete
  18. in my previous house we had oak in the kitchen. honestly, i didn't like it. i like something more durable for the kitchen. in the new house i have (ugly) tile... i would replace it with linoleum if i could. it wouldn't work well in our house. i say go for the linoleum... it's fantastic. especially black and white :)

    ReplyDelete
  19. I feel your pain :( same thing happened to us. Did you check out cork? We put cork tiles in our kitchen ourselves and we love it.

    ReplyDelete
  20. SUCH a bummer. I know you'll come up with something ridiculously awesome, but still a total bummer to not find what you were hoping for/dreaming of.

    ReplyDelete
  21. So sad! At least you figured it out before you got every last bit of it scraped. No matter what you guys end up going with it will look great in the space. Keep us posted!

    ReplyDelete
  22. What a downer! That sucks that the wood isn't going to work out. I like your alternatives though and still think it will look great.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Oh my gosh, I went through this same thought process in our kitchen! We ended up laying down our own VCT flooring in the basketweave pattern you show here. It was incredibly easy. I even did it 6 months pregnant. I haven't updated my blog since baby, (the kitchen is almost done, aside from trim) but you can see our process here: paintityellowblog.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  24. That is so disappointing with all the work you put in to remove it! I do like the stripes in the last photo though...

    ReplyDelete
  25. aw. poo.

    maybe you can get salvaged wood floor to help keep costs down?

    ReplyDelete

Thanks so much for reading....your comments mean a lot to me!
Sara