The Old Vicarage B&B, Little Ouse

Getting replacement floorboards that have age coloured to match those of the dining room is a challenge. The best course is to reuse ones that are currently in the house.

As the bathroom had a lot of damage to the floor and needed a flat surface to lay laminate on. The old floorboards were raised, as carefully as possible for reuse.

The good news is that, if you clean off the old stain that has been applied to the dining room, they match.

In the repair above, the damaged floorboards were cut back in a staggered fashion. This softens the look of the repair. It would have been great to have found a batch of Victorian 8 metre planks and replaced with complete lengths. However, as you guess, these do not exist in the world anymore.

Underneath the floorboards the damaged floor plate and two beams were replaced. You guessed it, out of site, out of mind. This was accomplished with new wood,

The last job, is to get the floorboards colour matched. They must look as if they have lived together for one hundred and fifty years.  I won’t be using an electric sander on the floors. This in my opinion takes most of the character out of a floor. Instead, they will be cleaned thoroughly. Then a light hand sanding and then a methylated spirit and white spirit solution will lift more of the old dirt and stain. The purpose is to merge this into the renovated section.

Once the above is complete, it will be burnished to give it the look of a floor that has been polished for one hundred and fifty years.