120 Year old Doug Fir: Lightening & Refinishing-HELP!
Lisa Britz
3 years ago
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Joseph Corlett, LLC
3 years agoPatricia Colwell Consulting
3 years agolast modified: 3 years agoRelated Discussions
100 years old CVG Douglas Fir refinishing
Comments (3)Hi, you should see if rubbing alcohol takes the old finish off (in an out of the way place). If it does, it's shellac. If the finish and color is in good condition, I sure wouldn't sand it (old house forum can advise - dings and scratchs in shellac very repairable.) Poly can go over shellac as long as there is NO WAX IN, or ON TOP OF the shellac. If you have to remove it get what you can off by softening it with denatured alcohol and using a scraper on it when it's soft, and then sand only to get a smooth surface. Otherwise sanding shellac can be a mess - it gums up the paper and the friction can cause black scorch marks in the wood that can't be removed (been there done that). The guy in the floor store recommended Bona deep tone sealer(DTS) for my 100 yr old fir, and I was skeptical - till he explained that the slightly brownish/amberish tint helped even out the tone and bring out the beauty of old fir. I couldn't be happier with how they turned out - a deep rich honey color. This post was edited by kashka_kat on Wed, Oct 30, 13 at 20:18...See Morefir floors
Comments (22)This post is old, but I too have old Douglas Fir flooring that we just refinished in our 1940's house. Our Fir is in the Dining Room, hallway and downstairs bedroom. We did the hallway a few years ago - the DR and hall had carpet over bright orange tiles that were tarred down by a previous owner in the 1960's. We used paint stripper to remove the tar and then sanded the floor (hand sander in the hall years ago; a rented stand-up belt sander in the DR). Most floor refinishers REFUSED to sand down the tar, so we did it ourselves. It left a lot of stains, and in the DR there were also stains from pet accidents over the years and stains left from the carpet tacks. We stained it English Chestnut and then Tung Oiled it (8 coats). I think the hallway only had one coat of stain, but the dogs' claws scuffed it really bad over the years, and since the DR was so badly stained in spots, I just second-coated the stain and am currently waiting for it to dry - the stains are hardly noticeable now. When we expanded the house the idiots broke the first two planks of Fir when they put in the header between the new kitchen and Dining Room (when I went nuts yelling at them they said "You are going to replace this ugly old floor, aren't you?" My reply: "Are you NUTS?!?! This floor is irreplaceable!") and so we had to get three new planks, and luckily our local lumberyard carries a lot of traditional building supplies like rough-sawn siding, and they actually carried Douglas Fir flooring in many different widths! None of the flooring places carried it. The three new planks fit the t&g, but they were a lot lower than the old, so the old was sanded down to match the height. The new planks also are going to take AT LEAST one extra coat of stain to be equally dark (old wood always absorbs more finish than new wood). I like the Fir natural, but the stains on mine were just awful. Also, it meets up with the new Sassafrass in the kitchen / family room, and that is a similar color to the natural Fir, but a totally different grain, so it would look really weird where they meet. Also, the dark floor looks really dramatic in the Dining Room. We are DEFINITELY putting a rug under the table / chairs to prevent scratches, though! As for wood floors in kitchens, we put Sassafrass in ours, and that is a fairly soft wood, but loaded with character. We have neoprene mats for in front of the sink and stove. I wouldn't personally put anything other than ceramic or porcelain or glass tile in a full bathroom though (even natural stone needs to be re-sealed every year). Athomedads, the floor in your pics is OAK! We refinished all our old oak in the entry / living room by hand sanding and 8 coats of tung Oil and they are GORGEOUS! All I can say is that having refinished both really OLD wood floors, and also finished new wood floors, I HATE NEW WOOD!!! Old wood floors sand down easily and soak up stain and / or tung oil really quickly. New wood takes WEEKS to absorb 8 coats of tung oil, and a LOT of steel wool in between. The old floors were completed in one week with 8 coats; the new took over a month! You MUST allow each coat to dry fully before the next or the entire finish is destroyed and you must sand it down and start over (TRUST ME ON THIS - I learned that the hard way - don't rush it!). As for sanding you own floors - it truly depends. Personally, I cannot handle a real floor sander (I'm a 125 pound female), but my brother rented and used the stand-up belt-sander with no problems. I would NOT trust him with one of those huge stand-up orbitals, though! On our old oak floors that just needed a light sanding, I did that myself with an orbital and it was fine. The only problem is being on your hands and knees for so long - invest in a good pair of knee pads!...See MoreFound - fir floors!
Comments (14)We had original fir floors in our 1913 bungalow kitchen. They had been sealed with tar paper glued down with some kind of black glue. Both tar paper and glue passed asbestos tests (we used 2 tests at separate labs due to paranoia), so we decided to remove the tar paper and refinish the original floors. We found pretty quickly that we couldn't find a contractor / floor refinisher who would take on scraping the tar/glue off the floor. The best offer was one guy who said he would sand them off, but because the tar gums up sanding discs, he estimated the cost at something like $200 for materials and $75/hour. We wound up doing it ourselves, using citrus cleaner, a wallpaper steamer to soften the glue, and paint scrapers. Call it about 60-80 hours on our hands and knees for this...part of our kitchen used to be an exterior porch, and it was especially tough going there. The parts that were always interior went _much_ more quickly, so you might be lucky on that front. We found that letting the wallpaper steamer sit for a relatively long time - 5 minutes or so - softened the glue/tar pretty well; shorter dwell times were much less effective. Unfortunately I don't have any photos on hand that I can show you, but even after refinishing, there are stains on the floor -- apparently at the seams between strips of tar paper. It looks OK but not amazing -- it is definitely on the rustic side, and if we had it to do again, we might have proceeded differently. One other possible option for cleaning the tar off your floor is a deck sander -- had this suggested to me but didn't get one to try it out. Another comment: if you disregard our labor hours, refinishing the floors was cheaper than putting new floors down: about 1/2 to 3/4 the price of new floors, depending which quotes you use. Still, I would seriously consider pulling the floor up and installing salvaged fir tongue and groove flooring - still gets you that classic look, but with less labor and probably better end results. Or, even easier, just installing salvaged fir flooring over the existing floors, though this might yield a pretty big height difference between your kitchen and other rooms. Hope all this helped, I'll see if I can dig up some photos....See Morekitchen floor tile that looks good next to douglas fir?
Comments (7)Thank you both for your feedback. I'm leaning towards porcelain tile (to reduce maintenance), so do you mean the slate lookalikes? The variations are pretty high, and I'm concerned it will be look busy. Is there a brand/color you'd recommend? (On the island, I was thinking the island cabinet would be wood and the counter-top quartz, but not sure what brand or color.) In terms of large format, what do you mean, 18x18? (the sales woman at the tile store thought 12x12 or 13x13 better represented the period but 18x18 could work, if that's all I could find. I'm thinking the larger tiles may be less busy--fewer grout lines--and possibly a little cheaper per square foot and to install) Thanks for the feedback on the floors in the back of the house. My fir floors aren't in great shape. I haven't had a floor expert out recently, but at least one contractor wondered if there was even enough thickness to refinish them. I don't need pristine floors (or anything) and when I got a bid to refinish/replace the fir floors 20 years ago, the guy said fir doesn't refinish all that great and then ended by saying my floors look like the distressed floors people are paying to put in. So it's possible the fir may get replaced at some point. BTW, on the newer polyurethanes, one book (The New Bungalow Kitchen by Peter Labau) said to avoid high sheen (too 80s). I assume there are longer-lasting polyurethanes with lower sheen that can help retain the feeling of an older home? thanks!...See Morebtydrvn
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3 years agolast modified: 3 years agoLisa Britz
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Lisa BritzOriginal Author