This home on the Historic Register of Louisville, Ky., built in the late 1800s, still has the original wood flooring—a mixture of species and patterns, and even both top-nail 5/16-inch flooring and ¾-inch tongue-and-grooved flooring. “Back here in the days when they built these houses, if they had red oak trees, poplar trees, hickory trees, walnut trees on the property, they would stick a sawmill out there … and put that wood flooring in the house, so that’s why I think this was such a hodgepodge,” explains Scott Eubanks, owner/operator at Louisville, Ky.-based Eubanks Hardwood Flooring Inc., who handles such historic homes on a routine basis. This flooring had been refinished badly, with sanding marks throughout, and had a mix of polyurethane finish and wax when Eubanks arrived. First they tackled the repairs using Eubanks’ extensive collection of salvaged wood he gathers any time he seems someone throwing out reusable material. After sanding, in some areas they had to tape off boards and use TransTint in the finish to recreate the look of the dark boards. With three coats of semi-gloss oil-modified polyurethane, the historic wood flooring shines once again, something that is always satisfying, Eubanks says: “We like bringing them back to life. We do these houses that are 100 years old ... when you get it looking good, it’s going to be ready for the next hundred.”
SUPPLIERS: Abrasives: Norton | Buffer and Vacuum: Bona | Edger: Clarke Super R7 | Filler: Woodwise | Finish: Lenmar | Laser: Bosch | Moisture barrier: Fortifiber Aquabar | Moisture meter: Delmhorst | Nailer: Powernail | Router: Porter-Cable | Sander (big machine): Lägler Hummel | Saws: Makita, DeWalt | Stain: Minwax/DuraSeal | Vacuum: Ceno | Distributor: Lanham Hardwood Flooring Company
