My husband and I just finished "uncovering" our beautiful hardwood floors that lived in secret under ugly carpet for the past 30 years before we moved into our house. I can't believe people would prefer an ugly shag to that gorgeous oak. We just had to strip it and refinish it (a bit of an ordeal), but I'm sure it will add thousands to the value of the house if we re-sell. Besides having to sweep up little dust bunnies that accumulate, we are so pleased with our remodel, as it totally changed the look of our house. If anyone is thinking about the decision to refurbish old hardwood, we highly recommend taking advantage of the craftsmanship and quality that most old homes were built with.
Hee hee--ain't that great? I made a similar discovery in a house I once owned and was so damned happy about it...
Yeah, I agree, but folks did a lot of drugs in the late 60's and 70's and Carpet at the time was the "thing" and wood was cheaper than carpet. We're on the other side of that now of course.
It was the style for many years. When I bought my first house in 1966, it had carpeting. After a few months, we replaced with wall to wall also. That was the way it was done. Later, in the mid 70's, we did a kitchen & dining room remodel and removed the carpeting from the dining room and refinished the floor. At the time, we were considered mavericks doing something so drastic. We sold the house with the rest of it still carpeted.
It used to be that only the well-to-do could afford wall-to-wall carpeting, so having it signified wealth. Back in those days, carpets were expensive and wood was cheap. Modern manufacturing methods have made carpeting the cheap option, so that's been reversed.
We had nasty white plush carpeting on all the upstairs floors when we bought our house, but it was on top of plywood, so after removing the carpet, the 3/4" oak flooring had to be installed instead of just being refinished. But the sudden drop of interest rates enabled us to pay for all the oak and two motorcycles and still have a lower monthly payment, so I guess we did OK. And we LOVE having oak on the all the upper level floors!
Rueful chuckle- Yeah, I saw the same syndrome first hand. When my father put me on broom duty in his construction company in that era, even entry-level cookie cutters got an ocean of Bruce prefinish plank hardwood, basically everything except kitchen and bathrooms. W/W was considered a luxury back then, and usually equal or higher in cost to hardwood, since synthetic carpets were just coming out. A lot of it was immdeiately carpeted over. Sigh- all that prime hardwood, now worth a fortune, lost forever. (No practical way I've ever found to salvage tongue-nailed strip put down with cut nails and an impact tool.)
This 1960 cookie cutter I bought last year, while lower on the food chain than the places my father built, still has hardwood in the original footprint. The 3 bedrooms are now exposed again, 2 of the having been badly DIY refinished by the previous owner, to repair what 40 years of carpet does do hardwood. If the living room and hall hadn't had brand new W/W in them, I probably would have ripped that out and gotten a pro refinisher in here before I moved in. If I'm still here in 5-7 years when that carpet is shot, I'll have to ponder the issue again, in spite of what a PITA refinishing occupied space is. (I'd basically have to empty the rest of the house into the kitchen/addition/garage, and plastic it off.)
The half-ass 1978 addition on the back, sadly, is another matter- cheap berber over OSB. That, I should have replaced with something before I moved in.
Same here. this house was built in 65 and when we bought it, it had cheap carpet in all the rooms. I suspected it had hardwood underneath so when we went to tear out the old raggy carpet, underneath was plywood and under that was HEART PINE.
Cool..........
Lisa^^ > >> My husband and I just finished "uncovering" our beautiful hardwood
Good for you! We just did the same to our house. Turns out our kitchen had old hardwood, but it had been under two layers of cheap linoleum flooring (what were those people thinking?). With a big clean-up and refinishing process, we too transformed the look of our house. My kids got me a Roomba for Christmas last year and a Scooba this year, and now I hardly even have to do any upkeep. At first I was afraid it might scratch my beautiful floors, but it has been harmless and extremely helpful. I also use a oil soap once a month. But I wholeheartedly second your advice to others to go back to the original!
We found the same thing when we removed the worn carpet in our home, built in the 20's, but there was a square hole in the living room that had been filled with plywood. I had a cast iron grill made to replace the plywood; now I just have to find a way to get some ducting in to turn it into a cold air return; I suspect its a fire hazard without the ducting.
Our main floor moldings all turned out to be lovely hardwood (maple, I think) but had 5 coats of differently covered enamels over the original varnish. Cleaning that up was a lot of work, but was well worth it. One coat was what they called milk based paint, and it was almost impervious to any paint removers I tried. Even the pine moldings on the second floor were nice looking after being redone; perhaps the age had improved the wood.
we came across the same situation. Beautiful white oak 1 3/4 by 3/4" plank covered by carpet for 45 years. The finish was orange...not sure if that's due to LCD or just age, but it's coming off.
We've redone two rooms...the dining room with chemical strippers and the hallway with a hand-held belt sander (took forever, but it's a really tough shape to get a drum sander in).
It took forever to redo just those two rooms, so we haven't started on the 30' x 15' living room or the three bedrooms yet.
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