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September 1, 2006
Rebuilding a Hardwood Floor: Goodbye Creaky Entryway
For the past year we, and anyone who's been to our place, have had to endure some extreme creakiness when walking through the front door and across front foyer of the house. The hardwood floors are almost 100 years old and (as we learned) had never been repaired except for the occasional resurfacing.
Last week one of my younger brothers, Dave, who happens to be a carpenter that specializes in finish woodworking, was in town with his family for a vacation. At a minimum I wanted him to look at it and give me an idea of what kind of work it would take. Besides being horribly creaky everywhere there was a decent size bump right inside the door where three pieces of the flooring were buckling up an inch or so.
After looking at it for a bit he (and I) were convinced that it wouldn't take more than an hour to rip up the floor, a few more hours for cleaning up the floor from all the dirt, and then an hour or two to put it back together.
Turns out the floor of the entryway was originally built in a way that we could start right near the door and pull up lengths of hardwood moving into the foyer about 5 feet without having to disturb the more serious part of the hardwood floor that extends into the dining and living room.
After I drained the water in the heating system (forced hot water) and pulled off the radiator Dave pulled up hardwood one piece at a time. We numbered each board as it came up to ensure we could put them back in the same order and have them fit correctly. There was so much gunk that had built up over 100 years that each piece of wood (24 total) took 10-20 minutes to clean up. Floor varnish mixed with dirt and sand makes for some tough scraping.
As we pulled the nails from the hardwood it was obvious from the age of the nails that this was the first time these boards had been pulled up since they were originally installed in 1910.
Once the boards were all up and cleaned Dave put down some swaths of liquid nail and we slipped the hardwood back together one piece at a time. By the time we finished it was after 10pm. Everyone in the house (2 wives, 5 children, 2 cats) was very nice about letting us keep up the loud hammering to get the job done.
The end result is a solid, flat, non-creaky entryway to our house. We've even had some of the regulars comment on how noticeable the difference is.
Posted by mike at September 1, 2006 8:11 AM
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