28 Oct A Row House Restored
Deteriorated floor gets new life and attracts buyer just two days after completion
A lot of people would have decided to tear out the floor and start over. But Interior Designer Jen Phillips was determined to do the right thing.
The pine floors in the historic, downtown Cincinnati row house were damaged by water and years of abuse. Sections of the subfloor were rotten. And as the work began, termite damage was quickly discovered.
Phillips, owner of Interior Renaissance, called in her experts and got the answer she was looking floor.
“The contractor we hired determined that we could replace only the bad subfloor and flooring, then use a special machine to sand and refinish the entire floor to make it all blend and look uniform,” Phillips recalls.
“We wanted the finish to be consistent, and look like the character floor we wanted in a space with an historic reference.”
Before Renovation
This would be no easy feat.
First, the contractor removed all of the damaged flooring. The general contractor then repaired floor joists and subfloors, providing a secure platform to nail down Pine flooring that matched the original as closely as possible.
Then came sanding, which included hand-scraping low spots, where the sander could not make full contact. Then came stain and polyurethane.
The existing floor was not flat and had not been sanded when it was originally installed and finished. So, the expectation was set that the newly refinished floor might not be 100-percent flat. Over sanding the floor to get it flat might take off too much of the surface, and the contractor wanted to leave as much life as this old floor had left in it, in addition to retaining the character of an older floor.
The renovated, newly finished floor is a critical design element, Phillips says, that helped make the building so attractive that it sold in two days.
“The finished product was amazing,” Phillips says. “It exceeded my expectations, and it looks as if it has always been there.” ©
Before Renovation
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