Exposing The Oak Floors

     This house was built in 1965 with red oak floors installed in all the main-level rooms, except the kitchen/eating area and bathroom. When we moved into the house in early 1967 we liked the oak floors and they were beautiful. Gloss finish was popular at the time, and they were glossy and slippery!  As our two little boys were playing with their great big Tonka Dump-Trucks, they would run those big toys from the end of the hallway across the wood floors into the living room and send them rolling all the way across to hit the fireplace hearth.  The nicks in the hearth are still there!  And also in the wintertime the floors seemed cold.  At that time it was becoming popular to cover up wood floors with wall-to-wall carpeting or to put in what was popular at the time, large oval or circular braided rugs.  I remember it was known as "Early American Decor." I bought one of those braided rugs for the living room.  A few years later we went to a carpet store to inquire about the cost of wall-to-wall.  Too costly, so we decided to have a fairly large piece of carpeting bound on the edges and place that in the living room.  But soon we went ahead and carpeted the entire living room and down the hall.  For many more years the three bedrooms were left with just hardwood flooring, and scatter rugs. Two of these three rooms still have carpeting. 
     Fast forward to January 2,3,4, 2014.  Approaching 45 years of having carpeting in the living room and hallway, we wanted to see those floors again.  On the recommendation of friend, Doug Bower, and after seeing his floors refinished, we called Phil Reinel, DBA,  American Hardwood Flooring.  He is from Stow, Ohio.  He never runs an ad, as he is plenty busy just from customer referrals.

     I'm sure it will be colder to walk about on the wood floors, and noisier too.  But we'll just ignore that and admire the beauty of how well this wood was preserved whilst covered up for so many years. Now days there are many lovely area rugs, and runners, to choose from, not just the oval braided rugs like back in the 60's and 70's. We have already purchased a Persian hand tufted wool 8'x10' rug.

Here is Phil and his helper, Austin, doing their work:  (Click on the collages to enlarge details)

Step One and Two: Remove the existing carpet, padding, and all the carpet nail strips along the wall and all the tacks holding down the padding. Removing nails and tacks from a hardwood (oak) flooring is a bit more grunt work than taking them out of just plain plywood sub flooring.  It was fun to begin to see what was under that carpet!  Old, faded and orange-ish colored wood floors were beginning to see the light of day!  But, oh my!  I was sickened to see the problems that showed up.
NEXT UP:  The Water Stained Wood

Click on the photo collages

After the carpet was removed they filled in all the nail holes and gaps with wood filler.