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yola
17-05-2006, 01:11 PM
Having just polished my lovely old basement hallway floor, I thought I'd show it to you all. When we moved in 8 years ago, this floor was covered by a carpet (horrid green thing that was throughout most of the house). When we came to redecorate the hallway (this took some motivation as starting meant continuing up a further 4 floors :shock: ), we took the carpet up only to find a concrete floor. Thankfully it was a little chipped in the corner so I continued to chip away at it and bit by bit we discovered this beautiful floor underneath. It cleaned and polished up beautifully, and it is uneven and worn by 200 years of feet treading a patch from the basement up through the house. I just adore this fact.

It's one of my most favourite jobs in the house. Waxing the floor then polishing it up and seeing it shine!!! How sad ;)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v210/yolamealing/P1010001_lighter.jpg

dinahsmum
17-05-2006, 01:19 PM
That is lovely!

isn't it wicked what was done to old houses (usually in the 60s?). Our old (?1880) artesan's town centre cottage (30+ years ago) (2 up/2 down) had revolting brick printed wallpaper and even worse sort of cheapo-cheapo wood laminate 'mantel' on the chimney breast, with the worst sort of electric fire in front. Removed all, took aim with a sledgehammer, etc etc ....... voila, a lovely old inglenook (OK, brick not stone, but still original) and the old iron range, smashed up and stuffed up the chimney!) :roll:

yola
17-05-2006, 01:32 PM
It is sad DM . . . we had to replace every single fireplace in our house - not one remained only 2 gas fires that needed to be condemned (dangerous AND ugly ;) ).

We bought a gorgeous hob grate for our 1st floor dining room fireplace (research told us that is what would have been there). We got it in a reclaimation yard in Bath and would you know it was an exact fit for the hole??? Almost as if it were destined to go in there :-D

Thankfully the floor wasn't taken up (being in the basement it's actually just laid on the ground . . . no foundations you see :shock: ), only covered up. The only damage is small holes where the carpet grippers were nailed in :roll:

Mags
17-05-2006, 01:55 PM
Plenty of elbow grease has gone into getting that lovely shine on the floor Yola!;)
Very nice!

yola
17-05-2006, 02:04 PM
I have a buffing machine Mags . . . ;) ;) ;) ;)

Hreow
17-05-2006, 02:35 PM
Polished wood is well worth the work. Love wood.

yola
17-05-2006, 03:41 PM
Polished wood is well worth the work. Love wood.

Interesting you say it's wood. I suppose I took it for granted that they looked like the brick paviors that they are, but looking again yes, they do actually look like wood!! Sorry - I should have made it clear what they were :oops: :oops:

Jac
17-05-2006, 04:52 PM
With all that polish you better not slip! Looks brilliant. What a lot of hard work.

Donna
17-05-2006, 05:09 PM
I too prefer the original features. I have two original Victorian/Edwardian fireplaces in my house, although two have been removed over time. Would like to go to a reclaimation yard to see if I could get fireplaces that would fit into my house.... maybe in time... when I have some money!!!

Moli
17-05-2006, 05:32 PM
Thatys really nice Yola, nothing like original floors...

Hreow
17-05-2006, 05:33 PM
Or I should have looked more carefully... :oops: I can see that it's not. Now...

Fran
17-05-2006, 05:50 PM
It's beautiful Yola!!

Naomi
18-05-2006, 11:40 AM
Absolutely goreous!!

In our old house we had quarry tile flooring all throught the downstairs, I loved it. Wasn't too impressed by the scrubbing by hand to get 'em all nice and clean but it was worth it.

Found out the person who bought the house off us has ripped the whole lot up :(

yola
18-05-2006, 12:30 PM
Oh no Nae, how awful - that's one of the reasons I'm not keen to sell this house - I'd hate to see all our hard work hacked around!!!

We have quarry tiles in the kitchen, but they're modern ones. Impossible to keep clean :shock: These will be being ripped up when we (eventually) do the kitchen as they have created a seal on the floor. Being impervious they do not let the house breathe and evaporate its damp, hence it all goes up the walls - which isn't good. As it's a basement floor literally built on the ground (no foundations), it needs to be breathable. The worst thing we could do (and a mistake many people make) is to put a damp course in as it will just push the damp elsewhere rather than letting it dissipate naturally.

Anyway - structural survey lesson over ;) :-D ;)

Naomi
18-05-2006, 12:49 PM
We're now in a wonderful 1930's semi but the floors are really unlevel. The dogs helped pull the carpet back a few years back and we only found concrete underneath. Was hoping to find a lovely tiled or parque flooring underneath.

We did find gorgeous marble effect floor tiles under a grotty carpet in the kitchen mind :D oh and hubby uncovered an open fire place using a well aimed sledge hammer :)