Old school flooring, door stops & floor ghosts

We have been picking away at the livingroom and made some good progress this weekend. The oak strip flooring is now out - and to my shock and amazement - I realized this flooring was nailed by hand... with real nails and a nail set.



And there were a lot of them!

Every time Jill & I were cursing all the nails, I kept reminding myself “it is faster to take them out than it would have been to install them” (repeat as necessary).



There is a pocket door into the room, and as we were sweeping up I noticed the high tech door stop. A scrap of wood stuck into a hole in the edge of the door. It was a fairly snug fit, but I managed to wiggle it free.



From the tool marks it looked like a pretty quick job - likely a small hatchet. I looked into the wall cavity and sure enough - it stopped against a 2x4. What a beautiful reminder that you don’t need to overthink everything.



Once all the nails were out, we lifted the tar paper to reveal the original room patterns and ghosting. I was quite delighted to see this, because it confirmed what I had suspected - the two rooms were divided by pocket doors. The room is 12' wide, and the two partial walls are 36" long - just enough to contain a 34" pocket door and close the gap.

The original pine floor has been grained to look like quartersawn oak. I am sure the spirits of the house will be happy once we put a real quartersawn oak floor in.



Here is a quick shot of our backyard as seen from the third floor. We are putting in a veggie garden along the fence to the left. We were sad to see our big tree go - but we are excited about growing some of our own food.