Michael Purser
The docent excitedly pointing out the centuries-old art adorning the storied walls of the Long Gallery in England's Aston Hall might have thought her tour guest was dull, because he kept pointing his camera at the ground. But her guest was longtime wood floor refinishing specialist Michael Purser, owner of Atlanta-based The Rosebud Company, and he couldn't keep his eyes off the floor. "That was one of the prettiest floors I've ever seen in my life," he says. The floor planks were 10-to-12-inch-wide, square-cut oak that was harvested and milled on the property when the hall was built in the 1600s. The idea of a subfloor didn't exist at the time, so the planks were face-nailed onto joists. There were huge gaps from the expansion and contraction process that had been going on for centuries. "They creaked like you wouldn't believe," Purser says. "When you walked across it, Lord have mercy! In that long hall you could have heard somebody at the other end." Although the floors have a dark hue now, they weren't always that way. Installed with no stain-it didn't exist in the 16th century-the oak was light. They were left raw for many years, Purser says, before they were finished with drying oils. The drying oils, due to the buildup of coal and ash residue from centuries of cold winters, as well as airborne particulates that flew in through open windows in the summer, darkened the floor to a smoky amber, Purser says. The floors have never been sanded, not even during Aston Hall's recent renovations that turned the one-time residence of a baron, Sir Thomas Holte, into a museum. "To me, what's very, very unique, as a matter of fact, it's off the charts… is to walk across the same surface that literally the baron walked across," he says.
See all of Michael Purser's popular blog posts and magazine articles here.
See all of Michael Purser's popular blog posts and magazine articles here.
