Wood Flooring Question

sublauxation

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I did some digging around on google but didn't find much, was wondering if any of you would have some insight

My house was built in 1949, wood flooring on the first floors. The 2 bedrooms have oak, the rest was fir. I always assumed the oak was original to the house, but looking at it more closely it has beveled edges. In one of the rooms it was obviously stained and poly'd not too long before we bought in 2000. The other seems as though it was never poly'd, just the remnants of wax. We had a flooring guy in to give an estimate for refinishing and he's convinced that the oak was installed as a pre finished floor.

Looking at the base and door casing which are clearly original and show no evidence of having been removed, and considering it doesn't look like the one room ever had poly on it, is there a chance that they actually installed beveled edge oak flooring in the late 40's/early 50's?
 

jbcurt00

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After doing it for a long time, in new, older, very old and extremely old homes, there is virtually no chance of it being original to the house, the bevel is the give away. Thats a more modern version of wood flooring, say a 1/4 to 3/8ths beveled edge. A micro bevel, 1/8in, found on pre-finished is a giveaway that it was pre-finished flooring. And an ecen more modern flooring. No sanding to smooth slight uneven edges. But either bevel is well past 1960.

We cut the trim/jambs off to allow the hardwood to slide underneath it.

Get down and lie on the floor and look very carefully at the bottom of the door jambs and trim, it was likely cut off.

The full-time install crew had a funky jamb saw, like a circular saw but w a side mount adjustable gate that let them slide the saw across the subfloor and cut just enough jamb/trim off to allow hardwood underneath.

We had to use a piece of flooring as a spacer and a japanese fine tooth pull saw until we got a oscillating tool that had a thin fine toothed blade.

Both ways worked fairly well, but every now and then, there was a little wood tear out along the cut line.

As a 1949 house, is the fir flooring also the subfloor? Or is it laid over diagonal 1Xs?

I lived in an old house while in college that had an oak strip flooring perimeter in 3 of the public spaces of the house. IIRC, LivRoom, DinRoom and Den. The center 10X10 area in each room was heart pine. Less expensive and would have been covered by an area rug.....

Loved the heart pine more then the oak strip 'fancy' wood.... go figure.

Love to see pix.
 

sublauxation

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Thanks for the info, this house has always been curious. It was built by a commercial contractor. He only did 3 residential homes (mine and my 2 neighbors) and then went back to commercial construction.

The fir is laid over diagonal 1 x's. It's odd that they did living room, dining room, kitchen and a hallway in Fir and the bedrooms were oak. I've not seen that in another house in my neighborhood.

When I bought the kitchen had a layer of linoleum stuck over the fir with that black tar stuff, an 1/8 layer of plywood, a layer of vinyl, another layer of 1/8 ply and then sticky tiles! The fir continued under the cabinets so I'm guessing they just ran it through the entire house to keep the floors level as it had to be rare to leave wood flooring in a kitchen in the late 40's so the linoleum was probably original?

I ripped that all out and had all the floors redone. It looked really nice even though they weren't able to sand out a faded area in the living room from a rug.

Unfortunately it was lost to a broken pipe under the kitchen sink. It cupped right away and although it mostly flattened out but a lot of the edges split in the process and the probability of some day getting a 2 foot splinter in my foot wasn't appealing!

I never fully appreciated it until I ripped it out. The 3 main rooms are all in a row for about a 40 ft straight run. The longest piece was almost 21ft long, most were 17ft. You sure don't get that nowadays!

I'd guess the oak in the bedrooms is a 1/8 bevel. I always assumed it was original, now I'm more curious as to what was there before the oak was installed. It's full of tack strip marks and there was some 80's carpet in the hallway that I'm assuming matched what was in the bedrooms. They must have been among the earliest prefinished floors out there.

Thanks again for the info, I trust the word of Iboater's for more than anybody else!
 
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JASinIL2006

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I agree; not many 1940s house would have been built with prefinished, beveled-edge flooring. There was some that was made then, but it wasn't common, wasn't very popular (it had a wax coating over stain that scuffed easily and that required lots of upkeep) and it would have had really large bevels. It is possible (although still unlikely, I think) that some of the early prefinished wood was installed and then later sanded and refinished with poly or something similar. That would have reduced the apparent size of the bevel somewhat. One thing that might be interesting is to compare the nails used to install the oak with the nails used in other flooring in the house. I bet they're quite different.
 

82rude

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HEY JB,my brother lives in a house built in the early 1600,s in England would that be considered old or ancient.:)
 
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