We bought this house back in 2007, and it underwent a bit of a transformation then—from tired drapes and green paint to something we liked a lot better. The carpet, well, short-shag brown-white. Not horrid. But I’m not a fan of carpeted floors. Bad for allergies. They collect stuff.
Well, one year about 2010 a man dropped by from about 3 blocks up the street—we’d met him on our walks. And he said he’d worked with the builder of OUR house, and had the blueprints, and would we like to have them.
That we would. And they were very interesting, the design before the remodel that had extended the kitchen and Jane’s room by about 10 feet where the old garage had been, and built a separate garage across the garden.
They also said, re the floors, ‘red oak.’ Well, I so wanted to know, but had no good way to take a look until the disaster to the carpet at Shejicon, which had the kitties pent up in my room—they’d torn the carpet at the door. And a look beneath—showed polished wood.
As best we can figure, the red oak flooring was in the living room and the 3 bedrooms, one of which is now the office. BUT only half of Jane’s room will have the original flooring. We think the carpet and the kitchen, hall and bath floors may date from the remodel, and that half her room may be slab. We cannot cannot figure what USED to be in the hall, but it is now simple quarter inch plywood, that is a tad shallower than the surrounding red oak narrow plank.
The original flooring (built in 1954) suffered a bit. WE can sand and revarnish and gt a nice finish, but it’s possible we may want to go to laminate all over (stone pattern in the kitchen, wood in the rest of the house)—but just getting that carpet out of my room is a delight, I don’t care if the floors are scarred. And we might opt just to do laminate in the missing sections. But just the rental of a floor sander and a little refinishing is not that spendy, and while we need to do something about the kitchen, all we need to do with the floor is just to get the carpet out. One roomful and half the office is now sitting on the porch, to be stuffed into the garbage can each week until it is gone, gone, gone.
I so love the bare floor in my room. The chair surprises me—every time I get up from the recliner it travels a bit backward, but the clean air is so nice. We literally found volcanic ash under the carpet, from St. Helens. It’s not certain whether it arrived in the eruption, or whether it just arrived later—in Washington St Helens’ dust is the gift that keeps on giving, every plowing season.
it’s probably more than you want to deal with at the moment, but can you make arrangements with whichever company picks up your trash to make a one-time all-at-once pickup for that carpet remnant? Here in my home town, the city (through the contractor, or vice versa) makes a charge for oversized items, such as the washing machine that I need to remove, and I’m probably going to have to do this a couple of times, especially since I plan to purchase a new washer and dryer this coming winter if/when I get an income tax refund. Maybe you might be able to have them take it all at once without an extra fee… might be worth getting it out of your way.
Joe, when my son replaced his washer, he literally cut the old one to pieces so as not to have it count as an oversized item. I’m not at all sure how he did it, or whether it was worth the trouble for the money saved, but it’s evidently possible. (And I realize that I’m very late responding, just returned from a vacation in the Rockies a couple of days ago and am catching up on assorted conversations.)
I helped friends who’d taken out most of the carpeting in their house. The floors were still oak underneath (except of one or two patches). What I was helping with was removing the staples that had been put in to hold the carpet or the padding underneath. (Vise-Grips or good solid pliers with a fairly flat end were the best tools for the job. A screwdriver helped when the staples needed a little more height before they could be grabbed.)
Quarter inch plywood suggests an underlayment trying to smooth out something slightly uneven underneath, e.g. tile. Can you lift an edge and get a peek underneath?
I agree. You may even want to pull up the plywood and see if whatever is underneath can be a surface for something new. If tile, you can lay new tile right over top, as long as the old stuff is still securely stuck down.
If the red oak floors were still nice (or at least could be resurfaced), I wonder why the previous owners covered them with carpet? Can you find close-enough flooring to finish Jane’s room in red oak?
When our kitties eventually go to the great litterbox in the sky, we will rip up our old carpet and put down laminate. Carpet just takes too much abuse, looks ugly too fast, and with my allergies, is proving to be problematic. At least we know that underneath is nothing but cement slab, or in a few locations, linoleum tile that pops loose if you look at it crossways.
Some people actually LIKE wall to wall.
I personally don’t get it. As an asthmatic with way too many allergies, wall to wall carpet is the spawn of the devil.
I agree, a peek is worth the effort, it may be nothing more than more plywood under there, but KNOWING the base is sound will be a good thing if there is ever a question, since you’re half way there!
We can call the city and have a curbside pickup of a large-ish amount as long as it is less than the volume of a VW bug. I’m not sure how many free ones we get.
I hope you don’t have to cover the original wood.
I think I can provide some insight as to why the wood floors were covered with carpet. It’s a generational thing. My mom grew up with wood floors and no indoor plumbing. Wood floors were cheap. Wood floors were what poor people had. Rich people had carpet (and indoor bathrooms). She couldn’t fathom why when my brother and his late wife bought their house here, the first thing they did was rip out the wall-to-wall carpeting and the custom drapes.The main reason they ripped it out was because of my brother’s asthma, but they were also restoring the house to what it had been originally. But to my mother’s mind, his house with its custom drapes and wall-to-wall carpeting was the height of luxury. But now carpet is cheap and good wood of any kind, especially flooring, is expensive. The “cheap” flooring of yesteryear is now anything but. Wood floors are the new “rich,” especially if they are real wood.
As your house was built in the 1950’s, it fell across that divide. It was probably built by people who could only afford wood at the time. The remodel was an infusion of money, hence the carpeting. Rich people had wall-to-wall carpet. My parents built a house at about the same time — 1955 — and the bedrooms had wood floors, the kitchen and den had asphalt tile, but the living room had carpet. My mom wanted — needed — that carpeting. It was all they could afford at the time, but when we moved to the home she still lives in, it was a step up: Everything but the den, kitchen and bathrooms had wall to wall carpeting. As soon as she could afford it, she carpeted every room in the house except the little laundry room and the entry foyer, including the bathrooms. It makes no sense at all to me to carpet a bathroom. But this wall-to-wall carpeted house is not about logic or sense. This carpeting is symbolic to her. If she can afford to have carpeting in every room in the house, then she has arrived. She is no longer poor. Never mind that there has never been anything more impractical for keeping a house clean than wall-to-wall carpet, especially for someone like me who is allergic to dust and mold.
We know what is ultimately under the plywood, probably directly under it…the planks of the underfloor. (has a basement.) What we can’t figure is why that alone in the house has plywood—in the hall, of all places.
As best I guess, the house was remodeled in about 1965-70, and the garage was converted to more kitchen, the little mudroom, and more room in Jane’s bedroom. This would have left about 10 new feet of the kitchen having to be floored in some way; ditto the bedroom. The kitchen got linoleum, and so did the bath. and probably at that point they laid down carpet everywhere to cover the new areas (some of which may be concrete slab) and make everything ‘alike’ all the way to the end of the new area. Eventually the kitchen got laminate. White. Pure white. A nightmare to keep clean, considering it’s also the route from the garden.
Now we want to put new laminate in the kitchen (anything but white floor in a kitchen!) and we have put a floating-floor new material in the bath. WE wanted wood floors; now we have my floor unmasked as wood, the office floor ditto (tiny room, that), and we suspect half of Jane’s floor is. Which may mean we do laminate in all of hers to make it even.
I haven’t run an orbital sander for ages, but I did it first at age ten—we refinished floors practically everywhere we went, and only in the 60’s did we finally succumb to the carpet craze. I’m not real anxious to refinish floors, but with modern extension rollers and polyurethane instead of stain and shellac, it’s got to be easier. And not having the carpet is going to help the allergies.
“We know what is ultimately under the plywood, probably directly under it…the planks of the underfloor.”
If that’s true there must be a level change between the hall and the surface of the red oak. Is there?
Yes. Either the hall flooring is down to the bare planking, or something is highly strange there. The planking is intact. I can see it as I stand in the basement looking up. It’s my theory they cut plywood to fit, but the thickness was not the same, and they thought the carpet and pad made up for it. Not. You could always feel a difference as you walked there.
There is another reason for carpet–it’s warmer! Especially if one walks barefoot or stocking feet. 😉 It’s a fairly effective insulation–few houses, except in coldest climates, are insulated under the floors.
It’s wise to look closely and trust nobody about laminates–ask Lumber Liquidators! Nothing’s better than good old full-thickness planking!
Lumber Liquidators (formaldehyde, as I recall, because they ordered a Chinese factory to go cheapest)—are definitely off our list. I’m not sure whether it was their laminate or their engineered hardwood…but…
Laminates from Pergo, Armstrong, etc, are a little better supervised. We’ve considered engineered hardwoods, but they have all the problems hardwoods have with only about 3 re-finishes before you’re through the hardwood: and hardwood does need the occasional refinish.
DIscovered we can rent a square (fairly gentle) floor sander from Lowes with a vacuum bag, for about 50.00 a day, and that would let us get a room done. My room has only ‘portable’ furniture, things designed to move easily in a 3-story apartment move. Even the mattress is a Sleep Number, which collapses down to an air bag and a foam shell; and the bed frame is four platform pieces that are, themselves, light. So I could clear my room in less than half an hour. You sand the floor, wipe it with a mop and tacky cloth, (holds any particulate), then get an extension roller and polyurethane floor coating, possibly involving a stain, and roll it, starting on the FAR side from the door…
The OLD way of doing it was to use an orbital sander with no bag, take a broom with a tea towel wrapped around the head, wipe down the walls, sweep and wipe down the floor, then go over it board by board, nearly, with stain, hoping never to overlap a stroke and let it dry before you correct it—a hands-and-knees operation. Then you let the stain dry. Then you get a brush and a container of shellac or varnish, and crawl along the boards applying the finish, hoping there is no gust of wind from the window, and that that insect buzzing about just leaves instead of becoming a permanent fixture.
You might consider bamboo, it is very sustainable and looks nice IMO (my sis has it–red oak planking for me! 🙂 ). You might not care for the contrast with the oak….
Getting rid of the old sinus-clogging carpets is a very good idea!
With the basement underneath that’s kept above freezing, the floors will probably be a bit less cold than in a house without a basement.
If you find it too cold underfoot getting up in the night, putting a throw rug beside the bed where you can put on your slippers helps for that. If you use a bathroom rug it can even be put in the washing machine occasionally to get rid of the dust mites.
This is totally off topic but I know you all for cat lovers. This has been an incredibly horrible year for me regarding my cats. I have lost 5 of them! First 3 disappeared in March. The mama bengal and 2 of her babies. The only good thing to come out of that is that I now have a vote from the council to strike down the ordinance saying cats must stay in their property. Then my 20 year-old. He couldn’t eat anymore. And now, today, my 7months old baby girl…she was neglected when we got her and she had FIP. So sweet. All gods creatures! How I love them. How hard it is. How much I grieve! Her brother looks ok, I truly hope and pray. So I have my 19 year-old, my neice s 8 year-old, my half bengal 2 year-old and dear sweet Cosmo, Luna s brother. All the tears can’t make it up. Nothing can. So, as an optimist, that’s why I devour science fiction, particularly yours, CJ! Our only hope is to get off this planet. You can show the way! That and Steven Hawking! Just crying my hurt…
I have a reason for carpeting! Discovered it when I replaced the carpet in the living room. Paint splatters everywhere. You could also see where an area rug had been. I am not sure if they could be refinished. Probably, but I would hire workmen and still use an area rug.
I disturbed dust bunnies today that had been breeding for 10 years. When the spirit moves me, I can clean! It is such a tight corner I was unable to access that spot. Between the bed and dresser. Now to find the small canister vac with the long hose to fish off the stuff! I am surprised I cam breathe! The bed is clear enough to sleep on now.
I remember the house we moved to when I was in first grade. The only brand-new house I’ve ever lived in. We visited it a couple of times while it was being built, and I remember the living room floor at that stage. Concrete slab [Texas Gulf Coast: basements wildly impractical], then diagonally laid 2x4s with their nominally 4″ side down that were NOT put in edge to edge. The gaps [as-remembered from a range of 60 years…] may have been either the same width as the boards or slightly larger. Then the oak plank flooring nailed over that. Oh: I forgot the layer of tarry stuff [moisture barrier?] between the slab and the 2x4s.
We lived there for about 9 or 10 years and I don’t recall the floors being refinished during that time. Just waxed and polished. Our Kirby vacuum cleaner had a floor-polisher attachment and I “got” to run it.
The kitchen and bathrooms had linoleum sheet over the oak planking.
My mother-in-law-s house in Eupora was originally built shortly after WWII, and I suspect there is oak planking under the [avocado! {wince}] carpet that was put in when they retired there at the end of the 1970s. Morris’s grandfather had rented it out in the intervening years, so I would not make any bets as to the condition of the oak flooring.
The MIL is definitely of the generation for whom carpeted floors and custom drapes were part of the Statement of Affluence. So yeah, this house has them. Also a chair rail in the dining room, with figured wallpaper above it. And four white columns on the front porch. And a chandelier over the formal dining table which would have regularly scraped Morris’s skull were it NOT over the table.
Ah, the vanities of fashion. We are contemplating replacing appliances, and the fashion word is that stainless may be passe in favor of (wait for it) white.
Well, black is the one color that has never lost popularity. Nor has white. Anyone who has lived and actually cooked Italian and Indian in a white kitchen will understand me when I say that there are sincere drawbacks to a white kitchen—which we had, when we moved in. Some people say they get them because they know they’re ‘clean.’ Well, I’ve had the experience, and you get to spend more time cleaning than cooking. Spill coffee? Curry sauce? Bleach and Prime are your friends. No. Above all else, I will not get white, avocado, blue, pink, peach, or brown: I’ve lived through all those wonderful eras. Stainless, maybe, because they may not have the model I long for in black. Our dishwasher is black. But, hey, we’ve never had a matching dishwasher yet.
When I had a choice, I opted for carpet the color of the dirt regularly tracked in and counters mottled in the color of tea and coffee stains!
My parents had a preference for carpet that was pile rather than shag or plush. When they had one house recarpeted, they got commercial-grade pile carpet. In a sort of coffee-and-coke color. It looked good with the pale-green walls and the gold knotty-pine woodwork. (The walls were my parents’ choice: it was the palest green they could get, in rooms that faced south, and it was absolutely gorgeous.)
Sounds pretty.
It was very nice.
The rooms faced south, so a cool color was necessary. At some times of day, it looked more blue than green.
Unless it were deeply discounted (and was an appliance that wasn’t in public view) I would never buy anything in a so-called ‘hot’ finish; this was undoubtedly a selling point for all those Harvest Gold and Avocado ranges. I’m more concerned about the reliability of the guts! All the kitchen appliances I replaced 4 years ago are boring ol’ white, and the cabinets too; with the tile work on the counter and backsplash, specialty colors would just be too jarring. If I needed to replace my washer and dryer (which are hidden in the laundry room), I wouldn’t care what color they were as long as they were reliable and not excessively expensive. Paying a premium because your refrigerator is brushed nickel just means trying to match that finish when something inevitably breaks down will be painful.
if it weren’t for the white finish on my kitchen stove, I wouldn’t know where the tomato sauce splattered when I made spaghetti, or if I did a stir-fry, where all of the spatter marks were.. 😉
My mother discovered the hard way that turmeric can stain a stainless-steel range. Or whatever they put on it as a finish at the factory.
Mmm, glad to know that one. I don’t use it often, but you also have to wonder about curry powder, which is amazingly stubborn.
Turmeric is indeed the yellow colorant in curry 😉 Solved that mystery!
Oh, indeed!
Lol—there is that.
But we had white appliances, white floor, white counter top…a spoon with curry sauce drops (nothing stains worse except blueberry) and there you are.
I will say that if you HAVE one of the old colored porcelain tubs, modern Oiled Bronze fittings can work a change. We have, yes, avocado green, but we found out that people in New York are paying big bucks for ‘retro’ bathroom fixtures. It’s too big to rip out and too heavy to ship, so we did the next best thing—we exchanged the fittings for oiled bronze (dark brown) and have the look these fashion-forward-folk are paying big bucks for.
Not too easy to do that to a fridge, however. You CAN have a porcelain paint job, but at cost, and you’ve still got the age of the unit to answer for.
I have decided that the next fridge will be counter-depth, meaning not deep enough to lose mystery jars that can grow new life in the back where nobody has accessed it since the Civil War. And that the freezer will be on the bottom, since it is less often resorted to. I’m tired of bending way down and searching.
Do they still produce fridges with the freezer on the bottom? It makes sense (cold air falls), but I haven’t seen a bottom-freezer at any major appliance store for years; they’ve all gone to the side-by-side model or freezer on top. Correction: the bottom freezers are apparently ‘the new black’ and are half again the cost of one of the other types. Sigh.
Mine has 3 freezer drawers behind a separate door on the bottom, and the fridge part above at a handy height to look into and get things out of. It was a bit more costly than the cheapest models when I bought it, but not extremely so, and it was an energy-efficient model, and is still going strong at about 20 years. If you divide the extra cost by 20 years, it’s not that much extra per year of easy access – I’ve found my Miele well worth while, though I have no idea about current models or prices or what would be a good reliable mid-segment producer of fridges in the USA.
Bottom freezers are available, as are “French door” refrigerators, with double doors to the top refrigerator and a bottom freezer. These are generally more expensive that top freezers.
As you say, cold air falls, so all a top freezer has to do is passively control the fall to keep the refrigerator from freezing. The top freezers I’ve had reserve a channel for cold air at the back of the refrigerator section. A bottom freezer has to get the cold up from the freezer somehow, or have two cooling systems. I don’t know how they generally do this.
Personally, I find all the drawers and doors hindrances. They slice the space up so fitting something big in, like a whole turkey, is impossible. The more doors, drawers, and fixed shelves, the more theoretical the capacity rating becomes.
Not only do they still produce fridges with the freezer at the bottom, its marketed as the new, top-of-the-line thing. I rather like mine; I think the bottom slide-out freezer bins hold more than the shelves on my old top-freezer fridge.
I’m also glad to hear that white is trendy again. I’m old enough to have dealt with turquoise, avocado, harvest gold and almond appliances and when I bought the fridge I strenuously resisted stainless steel, “You can always match white, besides, you spend your whole life cleaning fingerprints off stainless.
My apartment complex mandates carpet on the upper floors because of noise transmission. I have hardwood because I am ground level, but those higher up keep trying to install increasing complex sound barriers and sneak hard surface floors in. It never works, the neighbours rat them out, and they end up having to pay to have the flooring removed and carpet replaced
So, you need an abstract pattern of yellow ochre, pale orange and variegated tans for counter tops, huh?
We have old & grimy wall-to-wall carpeting in our living room that the prior owner put in. She also installed slick (don’t step on it when wet!), white porcelain tile she in the kitchen and dining room. There’s oak hardwood flooring under all, she told us, but she also said the prior owners to her “glued indoor/outdoor carpet to those floors!” and said glue doesn’t scrape off easily at all!
I’d love to strip out the horrid carpet at least but with an unknown yet difficult amount of refinishing, together with no place to store the heavy sofa, book cases and other furniture, this isn’t going to happen for a while. And when you factor in the three indoor cats and two bunnies (who get far better traction on carpet than slick floor), it’s not going to happen for years, despite their plentiful contribution of fur. Sigh. For the moment, we cover the ratty wall to wall with old and worn Persian carpets.
When I redid my kitchen I had Formica (white -LOL) put on the wall space between the counter surface and kitchen cabinets. Easy to clean and no crevasses between tiles to have to scrub with a toothbrush. And a D shaped kitchen sink which is the greatest invention since sliced bread. The faucet doings are at the side of the back and the drain is at the back so the under cabinet is actually useable, and it is easy to plunk bucket -or a roasting pan square into the sink. I even indulged in one that is extra deep -looks like I could launch ships in it.(I did give it a rubber duck!)