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My husband and I have bought an old house built in the 1920s that was in his family. We're trying to figure out how to upgrade and remodel it. It currently has carpets in most rooms and the carpet is about 40 years old. Yuck. In pulling up some carpet in the living room, we discovered wood floors. We think it's fir. We like to keep them assuming they're in good shape. Any opinions on fir? And what to look for when pulling up the rest carpet to determine condition??? Thanks for the help
Assuming Plano Texas or in the area anyway, most likely the wood is yellow pine. It may be stained a walnut color which might make you think it's fir. I'd give it about a 90% probability it's yellow pine. Back in the 20's, about the only fir available in Texas would have been C Grade fir. They could have bought 1x 4 C Fir and had it run at a mill to flooring but it would have been an expensive date even back then. It would have been about 4-5 times the cost of yellow pine. Yellow pine can make a beautiful floor in the right setting. If you have intent of taking the house back to the 20's, it'll be fabulous. If you want to bring it up to a modern look, it won't work. The houses with the mechanical upgrades but retain the old looks are the current rage around here. Some are just knock outs and incredibly beautiful.
Add note: the fir that was brought into Texas, most of it came from the Pacific coast. There was no lumberable doug fir in Texas. It would have come via train to Texas and freight was a killer.
Thanks Trapperl. Actually the house is in northwest Indiana. It was built by a farmer and his wife so I assume it was from materials in the area. Not sure if fir was common. We need to upgrade the house in certain areas. Still has knob and tube wiring in certain rooms. It also has plaster walls with water damage that have been wallpapered. Wallpaper is literally holding up the wall in certain spots.
Don't be surprised if a local in Indiana tells you the wood is walnut. I have family in Michigan, just north of you, and they have a few old rentals that have walnut flooring in them. When the old State Capitol building was remodeled, back in the 30's I think, they tore out a lot of walnut finish work. My FIL managed to get a bunch of it as salvage. I still have some of the more odd things made from walnut that were in the building. It was a reasonably common wood in the area.
Looks like standard 2" tongue and groove oak to me. Although stained a more brown color whereas you usually see it more honey colored.
I think your first course should be to try very very hard to avoid sanding the floors. Once that top 0.005" of wood is gone, so is the patina of nearly 100 years. Many people just want to default to sanding and refinishing, but I urge you to resist. Once you do that, you have nothing to distinguish it from brand new flooring.
Pull up all the little staples and carpet strip tacks. The tack holes usually are so close to the edge that you can't see them and the little staple holes will just fill up with wax and be invisible. You may need to fill a hole here and there with wood filler.
Get Trewax Wood Floor Cleaner and use it according to the directions. This will take up the vast majority of the schmutz that filtered down through the carpet, plus the carpet pad will often leave a residue.
Then, use a brown Trewax paste wax, apply and buff properly according to its directions. (I say brown because your picture looks brown; if it's really more of a reddish color, use the "indian sand" wax.)
If there are some imperfections, you should think of those as patina. The floor is nearly 100 years old. It should look like it. As I posted elsewhere, who looks more interesting, Helen Mirren, Robert Redford, or Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift? Who do you think would have a better conversation?
Of course there may be severe damage or big stains/fire damage/etc., in which case you MIGHT choose to sand and refinish, but I would just clean and wax and then live with it for some time before making an irreversible decision.
I agree that the floors look to be "factory milled" oak. The advice about removing tack strips and staple is solid -- regardless of what you do next the damage from the carpet has to be assessed...
It is generally a good idea to have a powerful shop-style vacuum around while you doing the removal of carpet and fasteners, the amount of dirt that filters through carpet can otherwise make for a huge mess and failing to suck up all the tacks / staples can lead to nasty visit to the ER.
The sample photo shown already seems to indicate some discolorations / black staining. Those generally will NOT look good. You can try to use a "solvent based" wood restorer to attempt to clean them up -- https://www.hardwareworld.com/p5gdrg...wWwxoChpXw_wcB The problem is that if the staining covers any signficant part of the floor you will need to have them sanded as the time involved as well as the potential exposure to the solvent fumes to "spot treat" any extensive staining is unacceptable...
The good thing is that if the rest of the floor is as structurally TIGHT and has no signs of patching the overall look will still be EXCELLENT as older flooring had a nicer / more interesting grain structure than modern flooring that is "harvested" from trees grown in more controlled conditions.
I have a 1920's house with these same floors, probably yellow pine. All the refinisher had to do was buff them up with steel wool, wipe them clean, then apply polyurethane. They are beautiful. I had a water-soluble poly, and there has been a lot of wear in places (15 yrs with active dogs), but I will do the same treatment in the future. Not terribly expensive, and does not affect the floor like sanding does.
Yours could be oak, but I know mine, which look very similar, are yellow pine.
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