Cross Gable Bedrooms - redwood walls and floors

Second Floor - Bedrooms - Floors and Walls

One of the reasons we picked out the Eureka house was the apeal of a two story house.  The house is a cross gable house that is a 1 1/2 story with a roof line that results in slanted walls, short knee walls and dormer windows.    This style gives the two upstairs bedroom an interesting look.

Like the rest of the house, the walls and floors had suffered from multiple layers of wall papers, paint, and floor covering over a 100 years.  But, like the rest of the house we found the walls straight and the floors with old growth redwood sub floors. 

Floral Floors and Colorful Ballusters

Jamie Strips Wall Paper

First step was floor and wall stripping and cleaning....  the floors where a mix of colorful  linoleum and painted rough planks.   We where unsure what floor covering made the most sense,  after we did the floors on the first floor, we liked it some much we just continued with sanding and finishing the redwood floors and we like they way they came out.

South side bedroom - combining small storage room.

While some rooms had been wallpapered the largest room had thin redwood boards which we left uncovered but we finished it with 4 or 5 coats of paint.   The redwood walls probably originally had cheesecloth like material covered with wallpaper at some point in time but all that was left of thousands of tacks.  The two double-hung bedroom windows were rebuilt due to years of neglect and leaking water,  a great job by Ray Swedenburg...  Once the walls were cleaned then the drywall was put up in most of the rooms.

Dave puts on drywall primer

Painted Walls and Rough Floors

Second Story Landing - Drywall Up

With walls painted it was time to sand the redwood subfloors.   We were very pleased with Rick Willit's work downstairs we decided to just do the same thing upstairs --- and they turned out very nice.   Here are a few picture of the finished floors.

 


Finally, we were very happy to have the help from Old Town Antique Lighting in Eureka who had ideas and fixtures -- very thoughtful and helpful.     A second great Eureka find is Humboldt Carpet in Old Town Eureka.

Redwood Floors – From Subfloor to Finished Art

Redwood Floors – From Sub floor to Finished Art

One of the biggest challenges in reviving the Eureka house was the floor and all that covered them. After a year of removing carpets, vinyl flooring, plywood and particleboard we were left with redwood subfloors. The rough planked floors were mostly square cut with the occasional gap that exceeded a ¼ inch.

Houses in Eureka have the unfinished subfloors covered with carpet or some other easy surface. The houses often do not have the hardwood floors, a few have Douglas fir, but many were left with subfloors. The cost of importing hardwoods was just prohibitive. Many of houses you do see with traditional oak floors were added later in the 20s or 30s.

After looking at oak and maple hardwoods we came back to the redwood subfloors. We loved the wide planks of old growth, some up toe 18 in. wide and many of them over 20 ft. long. You can just imagine what it was like to build these houses at the turn of the century.

There was concern about the softness of redwood, but we looked at other redwood floors and they were holding up well.

Our friend, Rick Willits from Blue Lake, gave us a great deal of encouragement and some advise on cleaning up the floors. If you need floor work and love wood then Rick is the guy to see on the North Coast.

We spent weeks cleaning the floors, scarping off the cardboard glued to the floors, cleaning the gaps, pulling a million tacks and nails and re-setting the large nails holding floor board down. Once our work was done Rick came in with the floor sanders and 4 coats of low gloss Varathane to finish the job.

The wide plants show off the old growth redwood that makes this house really shine. It helps tie the house the north coast and the ancient forest that are so much of the North Coast.

We plan to cover most of the floors with a collection of bright period rugs to protect our new floors.

New Victorian-Style Porch

We've added a new porch recently, and to our surprise, a charming dog came with it!

So far we've painted the railing, but there's still more to go.

We tore the original porch off as part of our foundation work.   We had a Victorian reproduction made of redwood designed and built for us by Dane Cowen from Ferndale.  He handcrafted the pieces, we painted them, and he put the whole thing together!

(Before)

What's next with our floors?

We are facing the great floor puzzle.    We have pulled up carpets and vinyl by the tons and now we are actually getting to the wood floors.  Our house was not some fancy upper class house with hardwood oak or maple floors; in fact we have mix of redwood and more redwood floors.  We’ve found some nice tongue and groove floors in one bedroom and in the kitchen,  many of the other rooms having broad planked redwood subfloors that are now exposed.

The North coast of California, including Eureka, was a very isolated area with no rail service until well into the 20^th century.  As a result of this isolation many of the houses had only softwood floors, mostly redwood, and very few original hardwood floors, or so we have been told.

Once we got to the redwood floors we called in the carpenters, floor restorers, and everyone with an opinion, to come up with a plan to deal with the floors.   The floor experts are pushing for new hardwood floors, while we would like to find some way to use the wide planked floors. 

We are looking for others who have had these redwoods floors to help make a decision about new hardwood, or trying to "finish" the redwood planks, cracks and all, or some other plan.

Here is one of the redwood plank floors --