My husband and I are rehabbing an old house built in 1890. It has good bones but needs some love. It is a two-story farmhouse style in the town near the farm where I grew up. Rehabilitating an older home is something I have always wanted to do. So, when we found this house, we were excited about working on it. But remodels always bring surprises and other oddities.
One of the fun surprises was finding the names and dates of people who did the old wallpaper as we steamed it off the walls. The earliest date being 1936. One of the head scratchers was discovering a heating/air conditioning pipe in the middle of a wall that went nowhere. It was just heating or cooling the inside of the wall. I am still puzzled over that one.
This year, while my husband did the electrical rewiring of the downstairs with a good friend of his, I decided to remove the carpet that was in the upstairs hallway. Aside from the carpet being completely hideous, I would prefer to have the original wood flooring refinished. It is Douglas Fir and while not fine wood flooring, I like wood to dark, ugly, shag carpeting that was probably installed sometime in the 1970’s or 80’s. I am so grateful it is now completely gone! Well almost…two bedrooms to go.
But, in taking that carpet out we discovered a section of floor where someone at some time decided it needed a few nails. They were probably trying to remove a squeak as that section did squeak. But, and maybe this is just me, I think 44 nails in a three foot by 3.5 inch section of wood might be a little excessive. In fact, I personally believe it falls into the category of “overkill.” And that was not the only piece of wood that had a large number of nails. It just had the most.
So, once we get the floor prepped and all the tac strips removed, we will probably remove those particular boards and replace them since we found a lumber company that carries tongue and groove Douglas Fir flooring boards. I should also disclose that the nail count does not include the nails the original installer used to put the floor down. Just another oddity I don’t understand as installing tongue and groove flooring uses a technique called blind nailing not nailing through the top of the board. If it sounds like I am venting, I probably am. The flooring in this house was not a job well done. It was overkill at its worst.
And here’s the thing: Anytime we overdo a job, we aren’t doing a job well done. It is one thing to make sure everything is done correctly. It is something else entirely when we use too many resources to accomplish a task. Whether those resources are our time, money, or supplies, it doesn’t matter. We should only use what we need. Using more is a waste.
I guess my challenge to everyone is when you are doing a job of any kind, plan out how many resources you actually need to use and then stick to your plan. And if your floor squeaks…please fix the floor properly. Trust me on this one…you don’t need to nail 44 nails into a single board to try and stop the squeak…it doesn’t work.
Peace,
Beth
P.S. I am saving the electrical stories for another day. Stay tuned!
Beth's Blog 