Amazing vintage kitchen floor

[northwesty]

Well thought I would post about the latest goings-on over here. The sticky-square vinyl floor in our kitchen has started to look really bad, here is a before picture. I know it’s hard to tell in this digital format, but actually the mat in front of the fridge is hiding a bare spot. The previous owners of the house put these cheap sticky squares over ½ inch particle board that really fails when they get wet, like when defrosting the 1927 GE. I put new squares down myself about 6 years ago as a “temporary” fix but now I’ve got picked out this cool green Armstrong industrial vinyl.

 

[northwesty]

70s floor

I feel like kinda an archeologist here as we uncover this 70s floor that is a whole lot like the one I grew up with. Right now I actually realize that there have been 5 floors put down on this 46 year old house, adding up to quite a loss in height.

 

[northwesty]

late 60s floor

Under that 70s floor is this really cool green vinyl. This is over about a 3/16 foam pad, and then green vinyl here, and then the green vinyl pellets suspended in translucent vinyl. These floors are actually in pretty good shape I can’t figure why the folks didn’t use them up more (like I did)

 

[northwesty]

Anyway, under the late 60s green vinyl is this yellow-brown original 1962 floor. Up comes another layer of plywood with this too. The wife and I were amazed at how well preserved this is. Fortunately, this wood is basically just stapled on, and none of the screws from the previous floors penetrated to this. You can hardly tell its dirty, which may be a good thing or a bad one, let alone the little holes.

 

[northwesty]

All cleaned up

Anyway it is a nice thing that during this little remodel that we can live with a floor that looks a whole lot better that the one we started with. It was funny how with each layer the floors seemed to look better, not worn out at all. This pattern is a whole lot like the floor I’m putting in. Really a different feel with the well over one-inch of flooring removed, now the stove is the exact height of the counter tops. I'll post a pic of the finished floor, it may take a while though. Thanks for looking.

 

[oldhouseman]

That's really amazing!!

What are your plans from here on ......???

A really old house is a wonderful treasure to live in. Mine was built in 1797 and I find a new treasure almost everyday. Keep looking at details in every way possible -you will be surprised at what you find!

 

[dalangdon]

We had the same fun discovery in our house: The kitchen had an icky 70's "Mediterranean" floor comprised of stick-on tiles. Not long after moving in, I pulled one of them up, and found a really cool linoleum pattern underneath!

So we set out with the heat gun and scraper, slowwwwwly pulling up every tile and expecting to find a big burn hole or something on the floor, but it was pristine underneath. After a dozen good scrubs with oxi-clean, it came out great. The daughter of the original owners comes to visit occasionally, and she love it! She can figure out why they covered it up in the first place.

Here's a pic from several years ago when we rediscovered the floor.

 

[neptunebob]

Did you get a dumpster for all of those layers? I would love to see how big a pile all that flooring made!

By the way, the pattern of the second floor was in the film Apollo 13, when they are waiting for the astronauts to come back and the girls drop the salad (in front of a KitchenAid).

 

[danemodsandy]

Green Floor:

The deep green floor with the pebbled effect was Armstrong's Corlon, in the Tessera pattern. Tessera was very small pebbles, and the more commonly seen Montina pattern was larger pebbles.

That was a rare survival of Tessera. Montina is still made, under the name Classic Corlon, but I haven't seen Tessera in about ten years, when I found a remnant of it in Home Depot, which I used for a bathroom floor.

I know of a Montina floor laid in 1966 that has survived five kids, umpteen grand-kids, and God knows how many generations of basset hounds.

 

[j2400]

I grew up with a 70s floor like the one you uncovered. In fact, as far as I can tell, the pattern is the same.

I find the archeological layers in older houses fascinating, and sometimes I see a change of some sort, and wonder why it was done. Some things, like floor tile, might be fashion or decorating choices. But there are those changes that appear to make absolutely no sense at all.

 

[rolls_rapide]

Sometimes the change is done...

...because the new owners cannot stand the sightof, or design (whether functional or cosmetic) of something.

My father absolutely detests vertical blinds, but likes Venetian blinds. So he whipped out the verticals and had Venetians installed. Mother quite liked the verticals, but agreed that they were inferior quality.

 

[oldhouseman]

That's amazing.

Brain, you have a beautiful kitchen! Very well appointed too. Great job, I'm glad all your hard work paid off so well.

 

[j2400]

Cosmetics are a major reason for house changes. But there are those changes that have little or no cosmetic value, and make one wonder...what were they thinking?

The house I grew up in (the one with the 70s tile) had a lot of these little mysteries. For example, the house had had oil heat for 15-20 years. Oil furnaces require an oil tank. Yet, there were at least four--count them, four!--such tanks.

Such mysteries probably have a logical answer, if you knew the circumstances. I know my parents made some changes to our house that could seem puzzling. Assuming the current owner hasn't changed things, one might wander into one room and wonder...why the heck is that ceiling light so close to the wall, instead of the center? Answer: that wall wasn't there when we moved in, and the light was more or less center for the big room that had been there. We added the wall, but the light was never moved. I don't think my father ever did anything electrical beyond replacing a worn out switch. Certainly, he had a tendency of putting things on a "someday" list that might as well have been a "never" list. Yet, a person of today wouldn't know any of this...all he or she would know is what he or she can see.

 

[58limited]

I found a blue version of the green vinyl pellet floor when I redid my kitchen. Although I like the black and white tiles I went with, I'm not happy about the floor: I removed two layers of vinyl flooring, which exposed a layer of 3/8" plywood. There were nails every 4 inches, so I decided to leave it. When the tile men showed up, they put a 5/8" layer of cement board over the plywood and then tiled it. If I would have known they were going to put that cement board, especially that thick, I might have tried to remove the plywood. As it is, my kitchen floor is 1" higher than the hall that runs past the kitchen, but I was able to cut an oak threshold in half to make a sloped rise.

 

[petek]

That was a treat to see. Your fridge and stove look great.
We have a mystery yet unsolved in our house which is a classic 57 4 level split. The laundry room behind the garage has two doors out to the back yard, about 16 feet apart one on each end of the room with a window between them. I thought that at one time the laundry room might have been two rooms each with a door but no.

 

[jetcone]

oh Dan

I like that tile floor you found it's easy on the eyes.

We had the Montina in our house , Mom picked out a pattern with large green flecks that ran the gamut from ligth almost white to deep ocean dark green. And she had the guy roll the installation 4 inches up the wall so that she could clean easily with no border. Today they won't do that rolling but it sure made sense from a cleaning standpoint.

 

[jetcone]

Brian

your kitchen is gorgeous and your children are beautiful!
Looking forward to see that new Armstong industrial vinyl you pick for the new floor.

I picked Armstrongs new industrial wood grained floor for my bath. People think its pergo! It looks and feels like wood yet it is sooooo waterproof and easy to clean that it is a wonder you don't see it everywhere.

jet