by Tao on Tue Nov 29, 2011 9:00 pm
My house is early 1800s. Under the wall to wall carpet in the bedrooms I found room sized lineolium rugs with several layers of paint around the exposed edges. Under the lineolium were newspapers dating to the 1930s. Under the newspaper was bare, random width tongue and groove cedar with lots of tin can lids nailed over the knotholes. The bare wood looked excellent. The edges however were very worn and pitted. So I believe the original owners had some sort of floor coverings in the centers. The parlors downstairs had already been covered in modern hardwood by PO. I tried removing the multiple layers of plywood and tile floor in the kitchen areas but there was a nail about every inch! What a mess! Two of us had to gandy dance on the edge of the crowbar and were only managing to chip the wood up a small piece at a time. What was underneath the 4x5 foot section I managed to get to was a very pitted worn original cedar. One area was rotted through and I had to replace a large section including joists. I ended covering it all back up with plywood and tile. It all looked so nice from the basement but in reality was not restorable. I've read you can remove all the floorboards and turn them over but this just wasn't feasible for me.