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.

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 --