Take two ''great'' Danes, add Dale from Archibald & some ''birds eye'' maple...

Finally...after I stayed until midnight the night before pulling out stray nails, ripping out the old birch bark off the floor and sweeping up the century old dust and dirt, the Petersen boys returned the next morning and we were ready to lay the new flooring. First thing though, we had some repairs to do to the sub floor. There were two trap doors and several other access ''holes'' to fill in. Then we had to lay 5/16 inch presswood over the entire floor. This would even it out and to raise the new flooring to the height of the old flooring which it will join in the hallway and the dining room. The old original flooring was one inch in thickness but new flooring is only 3/4 inch.
If you remember, we intend to refinish all the floors the same. As stated in the last issue the only place that we could find unfinished flooring is at DJ Smearer Hardwood in Archibald, near Jacquet River. Dale Smearer; owner, has the most unique business for anyone that has interest in anything wood...it is kind of hard to explain. From Mercedes Benz to Fender and Gibson Guitars, from million dollar homes to ski lodges, golf resorts, etc., Dale is the man to supply you with your exotic wood needs. For our flooring...we are going with rustic ''birds eye'' maple. Once the starting point was ''mathematically'' determined by head guru Larry, we were off like a herd of turtles! I was slowing the pace by being too choosy in laying one piece to the next. The afternoon came quickly and the boys had some holiday parties (yes...we are a month behind) to attend. We were finally able to finish on Sunday; not too late. We were missing a bit of wood to actually complete the entire room but it came out looking totally awesome!! Who knew that Danish people would know so much about hardwood flooring; if anyone is in need, I hear they come pretty cheap!
I had Larry and Joe sign and date the back of one of the pieces....I wonder who will be the next person to see it.... and when....




Cette fois-ci, ça va être vraiment difficile d'écrire ma version des choses...je n'ai vraiment pas participé dans le «replaçage» des planchers...une chance !  Mais, je suis allée avec  Eric voir l'entreprise de bois DJ Smearer Hardwood à Archibald.  Incroyable !!!  Même moi, qui ne connais pas grand chose du bois (autre que ça sens bon quand on le coupe) j'étais impressionnée.  Pas nécessairement par la quantité, mais par la qualité et les différentes sortes de bois qu'on y retrouve !!  Finalement, on a opté pour de l'érable piqué dans notre cuisine.  Les gurus (les frères Petersen) et le «aimerait vraiment être guru» Eric ont travaillé très fort pour placer notre plancher de cuisine. Le résultat final est très, très beau !

Those old floors...they practically lift themselves!! Ahhhh l'histoire des planchers !!

As you may remember from some earlier posts, we had ''discovered'' the original hard wood floors hidden under various layers of plywood and flooring. Unfortunately the floor in the kitchen was just too rough to save so I decided that I would lift it and replace with some new hard wood. As our intent is to resurface all the floors and stain them, I needed to find some unfinished hard wood flooring. Thank you to Dale Smearer from DJ Smearer Inc. Hardwood from Archibald; near Jacquet River, for coming through in a huge way! Dale has the most unique business tucked away in such a remote little place...will talk more about it in the next issue.

As I have never worked in hardwood before, I called upon the expertise of two hardwood flooring gurus...Larry Petersen and his brother Joey. Joe also has a lot of experience in renovating old homes as he has tackled a similar project on a similar house just down the hill. Looking for encouragement and bravado, I placed the call. ''Would we...'' they said, ''...no problem...those old floors practically lift themselves off...'' they chimed. A Friday night was chosen, right after work, a couple of coffees from Tim's and then a few beer for later. ''The coffee won't even have time to get cold it will go that fast...'' I was told. ''We will lift the old stuff, repair what needs to be repaired (several old trap doors that led to the cellar) and give a good start to laying down the new...'' they said with conviction. ''Won't it be hard pulling up the flooring with all the old nails?'' I so innocently asked. ''Nails...nails were too expensive back then!'' I was told. ''...they might have used one nail every four or five feet...'', ''...just wait...you will see!''. 

 We finally got going around 6:00 pm. By 10:30 I told them both to go home and rest up and we will give it another go in the morning! The hard wood turned out to be one inch thick by about three inches wide and most were as long as fourteen feet long!! What about the nails you ask? There were five inch nails doubled up every half foot or so!! It was deafening from the sound of the nails being forced to leave go their century long hold. One really cool thing though, was under the flooring the floor was lined with birch bark...the original vapour barrier! I decided to hold onto the the old flooring for a little project that I will describe at a later date. I must admit though that it was a great night...we drank a few beers and had even more laughs at the situation...''...lift themselves...''alright.

Ahhh...le fameux plancher de cuisine ! On croyait (et aurait bien aimé) pouvoir sauver le plancher de bois franc dans la cuisine. Malheureusement, celui-ci était vraiment en trop mauvais état.  Eric avait donc demandé à Larry Petersen et son frère Joey (qui ont fait cela très souvent) pour l'aider à l'enlever, ça devait prendre quelques heures pas plus... Mais, plus tard dans la soirée, Sarah et moi on a été appelé en renfort : « On a besoin du café, ça va prendre plus longtemps que prévu» !  Quand on est arrivée à la maison, on pouvait entendre de dehors les clous se lamenter !!!  Et des clous....j'en avais jamais vu autant sur un même morceau de planche !!

Nous sommes encore de retour / We are back ! Again !!

We are back! Again!!

We had to take a small break for the Christmas / New Year / beginning of flu season but we have some new (old....as the work has been continuing) pictures to share with you. The following are more pictures of demolition of plaster and yes....more steaming of wall paper!! Even though the work was progressing downstairs there was still some more prep work upstairs. We want to take the large bay window bedroom and downsize it to make an upstairs bathroom and this would enable us to increase the size of the adjoining bedroom to make it a bit larger for a master bedroom. In one of the photos you will see the ''mistake'' someone made a long time ago in measuring the stud and then scribbled it out...pretty cool.



Oui, comme Eric le dit si bien : nous sommes de retour après un court repos de Noël, Nouvel An, grippe...  Le travail dans notre maison avance très, très rapidement.  Voici quelques photos qui le prouve bien !! On vous promet (avec beaucoup, beaucoup de joie dans mon coeur ) que se sont les dernières photos «d'enlèvage» de tapisserie que vous allez voir...YÉÉÉ fini la tapisserie !!!!!!!