The floors

The buried treasure, our now crisp, clean floor boards

The stair risers will be painted white

The stain swatches, we prefer the one to the left

Oh happy day! The floors are being sanded.

I am constantly amazed at how with old houses, the beauty is in the subtraction. Under the dusty grey wall to wall carpet, under the thin post-war hardwood, under several decades of paint and grime: beautiful, rich, wooden treasure!

When you think of it, 10 months to erase almost 125 years of design missteps is small penance for the everlasting joy that these charm infused floors will bring us.

Miraculously, the whole process should be almost painless, or at least odor less. In our previous life, when we lived in the condo, new neighbours would invariably mean a week of headache and nausea inducing odors caused by atrociously toxic floor stain. But thankfully, the eco tsunami that has hit our collective consciousness has even managed to green an old landfill bastion like floor lacquer. So not only will we be able to sleep soundly, our conscience clear, in our own beds, we will also manage, at least this time any way, not to piss off the neighbours.