Look, I have floors!

These pictures are of the floorboards before they were sanded and polished.

Hallway:

Main bedroom:

I had the rooms rewired while I was at it... EVERYTHING was covered in the red dust you see below:

Look, no floors!

So I have decided to replace all of the old floorboards.

Hallway:

Main bedroom:



Spare room:

As with all major renovations, an unforeseen expense was the need to replace all of the joists in the second bedroom/spare room as the originals were an inferior timber and had old termite damage. This fact reassures me that I made the right decision.

I can't even begin to tell you about how dusty it got!

What lies beneath... my crusty old carpet.

I knew that there were floorboards underneath the carpets when I bought my house and a building inspection confirmed that the floor was stable etc. Unfortunately a visual inspection to assess the boards' condition was not possible due to the installed carpets.

The day after settlement, I went to my new house armed with a crowbar - not only to find out what lies beneath, but also to completely remove the crusty old (dog smelling) carpets from the entire house.

My dreams of beautiful old Jarrah floorboards were shattered upon discovering damaged and stained, half unattached planks ( :'( )

My carpenter said that they *might* come out "alright" after a sand and polish, but the problem was that almost half of the boards in the spare room, a good portion of the boards in the main bedroom and almost all of the boards in the hallway needed to be replaced due to warping and water (read: dog pee) damage.

What to do?

My options were to:

• install a floating floor system over the exisiting boards; or
• replace the boards that needed to be replaced and then paint all the boards white; or
• replace all the boards and then sand and polish.
  

Inspiration: White Floorboards

The best thing about old houses with crusty old carpets, are the beautiful old floorboards underneath the carpets... if you're lucky.

If my floorboards proved to be not so beautiful (like for example discoloured or slightly damaged), I have always loved the idea of painted white floorboards:






Credits:
First four images: www.livingetc.com
Last image: www.apartmenttherapy.com