Silk Purse, Sow's Ear

The eventual goal is, of course, silk purse. Currently, I’m in sow’s ear mode. Or sow’s ass to be a bit more accurate! The walk-through revealed a nasty little surprise hiding under the area rugs and extending to the wall to wall carpet as well. The oak floors in living room, dining room and to a much lesser extent the sitting room, are completely destroyed by dog piss. To the point where in several large spots (maybe 12″ x 18″) the finish is completely eaten away. In some places the carpet pad was stuck to the floor.

Dining room floor - post dog.

Now, this is not a showstopper by any means, but I did think that I would be able to get away with just refinishing the upstairs floors, which are pine, and much of the finish has just worn off over the years.
Oh, but no. Remember the 2x theory? Well, here it is. Applied. And I hadn’t even closed yet!

Undaunted, I accepted the condition of the house at walk-through and closed the sale yesterday, November 30, 2009. I also placed a call to the best floor guy I know, and he met me at the house last night at 7:00
p.m. Two and a half hours after I closed, I had all the carpet and padding ripped out of the house, exposing possibly some of the ugliest floors I’ve ever seen.

With the carpet rolled up, and half the padding removed. It's ugly.

Fortunately Mark, my floor guy, has seen worse, and we both agreed that sanding and staining the oak was the best way to go. Upstairs, just sand and finish. The word ‘character’ was bandied about, we laughed, shook hands, and I await his quote. 2x. Always keeping that in mind…. 2x.

The yellow bits are where the carpet padding is stuck to the oak floor.

Remember the storefront addition that I mentioned? Well, there is a doorway from the sitting room of the house to the storefront. It still has the oak woodwork surrounding it, and it is boarded up with thin plywood from both sides. The plywood and little trim mold they used was stained on the house side to match the existing woodwork. I just had a feeling about that doorway. I figured that they probably just removed the lockset and doorknob from it to allow the thing to be boarded up, and I figured the door was still in there. Well, I hoped anyway.

The 'mothballed' door connecting the house to the storefront.

During the walk-through, I found the dismantled staircase that had been between the house and the storefront (they are at different elevations). It was piled up in the attic. I’m talking beautifully built stairs, newel posts, balusters, etc. This gave me a bit more hope that the door was inside those plywood shields.

So I had about 10 minutes between pulling the carpets and Mark’s arrival, so I started pulling the trim off that doorway. I got 2 of the 3 pieces removed when Mark showed up, so I left it while we discussed floors and the relative merits of shooting people who allow their pets to piss all over otherwise stunning wood floors. (There are many WTF moments in renovation-land as you will see…)

Mom and dad arrived just as Mark was leaving, and we got the last piece of trim off that door. Dad pulled the plywood off, and Oh-My-God. Behind it was one of the most beautiful doors ever! Truly. It is solid oak with beveled glass. Probably every bit of three inches thick. I couldn’t believe my eyes! I really thought the door would probably be a 1/2 light – solid at the bottom, and glass in the top half. That was a fairly standard front door for the era, and this had been the front door before the storefront was added. I did not in any way expect this style
of door! Now I am hoping that the lockset, door knobs and hinges are somewhere in the attic, perhaps with the stairs that I found.

The beautiful oak and beveled glass door hidden behind plywood.

So there are moments that take your breath away in projects like this, and they more than make up for the piss-laden floors. After I collected myself, we went upstairs.

LIberated from deep-pile brown carpet - the oak staircase and newel post.

On my agenda was, at the very least, peeking under the pressed tile ceiling in the master bedroom. It had been added sometime probably in the last 20-25 years I’d guess. I wanted to see if the plaster ceiling that it covered was in any kind of decent shape, but either way, that tile was coming DOWN.

Dad had his prybar with him – one of the top three most valuable demolition tools – the others being a 3 lb. sledge and a claw hammer. So he pried away one of the tiles. Turns out they were just stapled to
lath boards that had been nailed to the ceiling. In about 10 minutes every ceiling tile was on the floor. There is a crack in the plaster ceiling, so I will just sheetrock the entire thing and call it done.
Another of the bedrooms has a textured ceiling that will also get sheetrock. The ceiling in the third bedroom is also textured, but is much less offensive, so that will just get painted.

The ceiling tile is now on the floor, ready to be tossed on garbage day.

So a re-cap of day one: removed soiled carpet and pads, found gorgeous door behind plywood shield, removed tile ceiling in bedroom, assessed scope of work on floors (quote pending…), assessed scope of work on bedroom ceilings. Not bad for 3-1/2 hours of work, and not a bad beginning on my sow’s ear!

Originally posted December 1, 2009