Anyone who has followed this blog knows, flooring has easily been the most discussed adventure in my home ownership odyssey. With only one more carpeted section of the house, this may actually be the second to the last flooring post!
The sun room was carpeted, and as to be expected, was disgustingly stained and well damaged from the sun and foot traffic. I used it as the dumping ground for random construction materials and a staging area for most of the house projects. As such, it was basically the last room on the main floor that was given any attention.
Upon removing the carpet, we found groovy vinyl tiling and plywood:
Under the plywood was the original hardwood floor:
What was most surprising, however, was what the previous owners used as a base before laying the plywood down. The streaks of light brown paper is actually pages from the Washington Post – from the 1970s! Here is a close up on a section featuring the Laotian uprising:
Part of me just wanted to do some spot sanding, then lacquer the floor to preserve the articles. With some wonderful old ads and a few bizarre local stories, I thought it a pretty awesome time capsule of life in Washington, D.C. Well, “sense” prevailed, and we decided to just cover it in pergo laminate flooring.
Given my druthers, I’ll eventually take this out and refinish the original flooring. And still plan to preserve at least some of the newspaper clippings. But until then, pergo flooring just made a lot more sense given the traffic this room will see.
Between Awnings and AstroTurf 