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Fast forward a couple hundred years to another blazing July afternoon in 2019 Ontario, roughly 300 miles south on a historic farm in Fonthill, and wood floor pro Delbert Adams was out carefully grading walnut planks for a forest-to-floor project. The large, sixth-generation farm was built by the massive commercial success of the McIntosh in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Having invested heavily in growing McIntosh apples, the farm’s original owners “caught the wave and they made good money,” says Adams, who owns and operates Tamworth, Ont.-based Sheffield Hardwood with his wife, Donna.
The farmhouse was built in the 1860s, and the area, which Adams calls “Canada’s wine country,” is as rich in history as it is in fruit. So when the farmhouse owners reached out to Adams about a roughly 800-square-foot flooring project made from walnut trees growing on their apple farm, Adams, much like his biblical namesake, couldn’t resist the temptation.
"They planted these walnut trees 100 years ago,” Adams says. "I think what they'd done over the years is harvested walnut to do renovations in the house, because everything's walnut.”
Adams had done forest-to-floor projects in bits and pieces for parquet projects in the past, but never to this scale. He was contacted about the project around Christmastime, and the lumber, prepared at a local sawmill and dry kiln, was ready for Adams by the first week of June.
"The guy who did the milling, it was beautiful,” Adams says. “It's better than stuff I buy."
After letting the wood acclimate at the farmhouse, he and Donna moved in—literally—to grade it, as the homeowner provided lodging on the farm for the duration of the two-week project.
“We had to cut it to length and square it up, and then we end-matched it on-site,” Adams says. He used a miter saw to cut the lengths of what was close to 1,800 board feet.
Because they had to set up a temporary woodshop outdoors, there was a lot of hauling the flooring from the house to the yard and back.
“Luckily, the homeowner had a nephew who had nine kids,” Adams laughs. “So he recruited all his grandnieces and nephews—some of them only 3 feet tall—to help carry the boards in and out.”
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But even with the young crew’s help, the grind of the grading, combined with the unblinking wine-country sun, took its toll.
"I got a bit of a sunstroke because I was just trying to get it done,” Adams says. “So you just put your head down and go, go, go.” He even got hives from the sun. “I was kind of walking the tightrope to not get sick, but keep the work going, but not be too miserable because we're staying at the customer's place,” he laughs.
With the flooring cut to length and end-matched, it was time to install. Adams used a roll-on moisture barrier/primer, adhesive and nails to install the flooring over the plywood subfloor of the older home (they’d already sealed off an old crawlspace with a cistern under a portion of the floor that could have presented moisture issues). Boards with widths above 5 inches were also screwed and plugged.
Once the flooring was down, Adams used a PowerDrive with 100-grit to sand out the milling marks and then gave the floor one coat of sealer and two coats of water-based finish.
After all the work, Adams didn’t have a moment to truly admire the floor until weeks later when the homeowner shared pictures with him.
"Seeing it later, I thought, ‘Hey, that looks pretty slick!’" he says.
Ontario legend has it McIntosh stumbled upon his famous apple by luck while surveying a plot of land he’d purchased. But Luck didn’t play a role in Sheffield Hardwood’s walnut forest-to-floor project; rather, it was tenacity, collaboration and craftsmanship that developed this gem from the land—a reward that might be even sweeter.
Suppliers:
Abrasives, Adhesive, Finish, Sander, Sealer, Moisture Barrier/Primer: Bona | Saws: Makita
