NEW FLOORS
I don’t know what made us think doing some remodeling during Mardi Gras season was a good idea. We moved our bed out to my studio and piled all our other furniture into the living room. It was so full that a stray cat walked in and hid under the dresser and we didn’t even notice for at least a day and night.
Our house ( Perrie ) is old. Some say 1877, some say earlier. The paper trail is iffy. All these houses like this around us were built out of barge board. Barge board is exactly what it sounds like—boards from barges. Back in the day before they could send barges back up river they dismantled them and reused the wood. And that’s what this house is made from. That, and a bunch of 2x4s that aren’t really anything consistent.
We had been wanting to redo our floors and also wanting to move a door, so the two things needed to happen with a plan in mind because one would affect the other. So our contractors set to work. Moving the door was first on the list. They disassembled the old hardware and trim and cut into the new wall. What we found was awesome. I was able to see where our house originally ended. Over the years more has been added on, but the original part of the house ended at John’s office. How do we know this? Barge board! we unearthed 12’ planks of wood that ranged from 8”-15” wide ( and yes, we saved them ). But even cooler were the nails we found—hand made—and strips of what looked like linen that were glued to span the gaps of each board. On top of that was bits of old wallpaper. So it looks like the linen smoothed out the boards so the wallpaper could cover it all. I saved what I could and will hopefully make something with those bits.
Once the door was in it was time for the floors. Goodbye carpet, hello heart pine. And man they look goooood.
Back to finishing up the walls—trim, mud, new transom windows and shelves. Then paint. lots of paint. Now it feels like it should’ve always been this way.
