Are these the original floors and what’s that white stuff?

[Baytkadim]

My house was built in 1911. Do these wood floors under the laminate look like they could be from that time period or done later? What is the white stuff on it (paint? Adhesive?). I tried to get pictures of the cross section of the wood were you can see the the width of the wood, it’s pretty narrow, more than 1 inch in width though. Thanks

[Gothichome]

Baytcadim, welcome to the District. I would say yes, they are the original floors. As far as the white stuff it looks like coarse plaster used as a filler but I’m sure it is not. It might just be a hundred years plus of household dust.
Tell us more of your home, we like pictures here in the District.

[Baytkadim]

Hi, thanks for your reply, I appreciate it. My house is a 2 and 1/2 story wood frame house on poured concrete in Ontario. From fire insurance records I actually think they house is older than 1911 but need to do more digging. Real estate developers got a hold of it and really destroyed or covered up most of the history. I was able to remove a piece of laminate in a different room and attached a picture of the floor. The white stuff came up by scrubbing with a baby wipe. I was told by the home inspector that the original wood floors were gone on the first floor but wasn’t sure about the second floor so went looking and found this wood floor. I’m also not so sure about the first floor anymore either. I see a layer of wood with grain on top of the plank subfloor on the first floor and want to find out what it is. Anyway, sorry for all my rambling, I’ll see if I can get a plank up downstairs and see what’s underneath.

[1918ColonialRevival]

Those look like original oak floors. That width of flooring was very popular during the early 20th Century.

I'd get all of that crap laminate out of there to get a better idea of what you're working with.

As for the white substance, it looks like a couple of different things. It looks like someone was very careless with a paint sprayer in your second picture. The last few pictures look like some clown rolled on some kind of primer or paint onto the wood before putting the laminate down, possibly as a feeble-minded attempt to try to "level" the floor before installing the laminate.

[Baytkadim]

Okay, thanks so much. Yeah, I think they didn’t care at all and just went wild with the paint sprayer. With any luck, it will all come off easily. I took up a laminate piece downstairs and looks like thin face-nailed oak strip flooring. I wonder why the tongue and groove upstairs but face-nail downstairs.

[phil]

typical of old homes, it only takes one owner or tenant during it's long history with the thought that they would "brighten things up" - the result of a day of painting is likely several days or even weeks or months of paint stripping to restore and enjoy the original woodwork. Some early paints such as calcimine paint were water soluble, so if water works, that's good but I wouldn't expect that to be the case on all your painted- over woodwork.
Often the original woodwork was coated with shellac which has a low melting temp so if they didn't wash off the shellac or sand it before painting, the paint often strips fairly easily with a heat gun.
some of the older paints contain lead, you can have it tested if you want. Knowing what it is is important for your choice of PPG. In some cases original woodwork was painted, but usually the wood trim was protected by shellac.
In the early days, some paints were milk paint. the milk paint may be hard to remove with a heat gun.
usually you can try water, then alcohol or mineral spirits, then paint thinner, then paint stripper. even stronger solvents may be lacquer thinner or acetone.
Experimenting to find what softens or removes the paint helps identify what you are dealing with.
You can also use abrasive means, sandpaper or carbide scrapers. Often you can get most of the paint off before doing that to minimize the paint dust and sandpaper clogging. sanding may break through the darkened wood near the surface ( the patina) and in some cases this patina may be saved by only using chemical means and not abrasives. usually I find I need to remove most of the paint and then I can sand the wood to expose it's beauty. In some cases such as an antique table or a handrail you may want to save the patina.

If you have heat vents, check there first, you may be able to see the flooring without removal. you might have to pull back the tin in some spots to check. It's common to have layers of different types of flooring and if restoration is your goal then you'd want to remove it but of course you have to consider the practicality and timing to minimize the chaos.

your stair tread rise should be consistent and it probably would have been when they were originally constructed. If you find the bottom step , or top step has more or less rise than the other steps this may be a sign that you have multiple layers of flooring. It's a clue.
If you want ot sand a floor, it is important how much has already been sanded. try sticking business card in the cracks to measure the depth and also look near walls to see if you see any inconsistency like a slope or curvature of the flooring near the walls.

tongue and groove flooring is divided by thirds. If you remove more than 1/3 you will see the tongue and groove and expose a lot of the nails. You can hammer nails that are exposed in the sanding process down and putty to some extent but there is a limit. If you dont have more than about 1/8th left then the piece above the tongue can break off. even thought the flooring is typically 3/4" you really only have about an eighth of an inch or 2-3 millimeters that you can work with. beyond that you can replace flooring with original flooring salvaged from other houses.
at a place such as a heat vent you may be able to measure the flooring thickness.

sanding a floor usually requires the use of several machines, a drum sander, edger and a flat pad sander. How well they executed this process, or what machines were used, and if baseboards were removed during sanding may become evident upon closer examination.
In some houses you may find that the original finish was paint. more often is the case where they have applied paint at some point after construction and during the lifespan of the house. If all your doors , baseboards and trim have been painted this can be a considerable amount of work to rectify so it becomes, for many a labor of love. Some dont wish to invest that amount of labor and continue painting. paint is cheap. paint is fast, paint sells, and house flippers and those influenced by home improvement drama TV shows love it. I'd suggest putting some thought into your end goals and consider the time and time cost in your own decisions. Doing restoration "right" isn't always the fastest or most profitable. Many love their houses and take great pride in striping and refinishing the original woodwork.
modern laminate floors are quick to lay and cheap. sometimes you may find nice original floors preserved over time under the protection of laminate or other types of flooring. In some cases that may be a step in minimizing the chaos and keeping the place livable or even to prevent tenants from damaging the original floors. Its probably wise for you to put some thought into what you wish to do, and to to make your own assessments to make them fit your schedule. You have to weight up time , costs and other factors. If the house is vacant and under renovation then it's easier to make a big mess with dust or do things that make a lot of fumes.
If you live in it during this time the process needs to be practical and often planned in such a way that you can live around it without needing a divorce lawyer.

[1918ColonialRevival]

Odds are your first floor is T&G as well. More than likely, someone added the face nails later, probably in an ill-informed attempt to quiet squeaking.

In the room that looks like paint overspray on the floor, try taking some naphtha and #000 steel wool to the sprayed areas on the floor. If it starts to come up, all it is is paint overspray. In the hallway where it's thicker, test a small area with some paint stripper. If it bubbles and lifts, you have your answer to what was done with the floors.

My house (a 1918 CR with two and a half stories - probably very similar to yours) has T&G on all levels except the basement. First floor is oak. Second is yellow pine. Third floor is the oak and pine boards they had left over from the previous two floors and was finished in a dark garnet color originally.

[phil]

perhaps some newer floors were face nailed. like oak strip flooring, they used small finishing nails, buried the heads and puttied them.
old boards tend to shrink with age. original and finished floors are usually sanded smooth and time may show how the boards have shrunk. the wood shrinkage isnt' consistent and so sometimes on flat cut lumber you can see how the grain has become , not rough but pronounced. Edge grain may show this less. also the outer skin of the boards darkens with age and sunlight. if it's moist near the nails you may see dark spots due to the reaction between the tanins in the wood and iron, so it may look black near the nails. As the boards shrink up over time the gaps usually increase to a point whher the wood becomes dimensionally stable. some lumber may show less shrinkage , maybe if it were cured before installation you'd have smaller gaps. mine are all 3.25" edge grain fir, no knots, most is heartwood. in the attic they used 3" I think that was done later. the flooring is long, 20 feet , very fine grain. the quality of the lumber is from old growth trees. Typically newer wood isn't of this fine quality. second growth forests show larger grain patterns because when trees are cleared they dont fight for light and the trees grow fast. the combination of the above aspects might help loosely date the wood.

[Baytkadim]

Hi everyone, thank you for all the information and suggestions. I’m really enjoying finding out what’s underneath all this laminate. I wanted a more historic home, but this house was in the right location at the right price so that won out. The house isn’t very historic anymore except for the staircase and some windows. It’s does have beautiful high ceilings, a nice lay out, and Victorian entryway though.

The previous owners weren’t the ones who put the laminate down so they had no idea if the original floors were underneath. The home inspector told me he thought they’d been taken out. He only looked down one vent on the first floor where there is no T & G visible, just strips of wood and then the subfloor, so assumed it was all gone I guess. That isn’t his job anyway, but I thought I would ask him. I was under the impression all the wood floors were gone and was sad about that. So, when I was removing the runner from the staircase, I saw T & G peaking at me beneath the laminate where the second floor meets the top step and got excited.

Today, I also took another small piece of laminate out of one of the closets and the wood looks beautiful. It had the white paint on it which came off with a wet rag. It looks like the thick paint in the hallway of the first photo might be the problem. I will definitely try the different solutions you all suggested to see if the white stuff is paint in the hallway and what kind of paint. The attic looks like it has thick, wide planks of wood, but it’s covered in sticky linoleum and then carpet. I guess that might be a whole asbestos problem.

I really just want to take up all the laminate now. If it’s really bad, we have enough rugs to throw over things until we figure out what to do. I definitely need to get the paint tested for lead first though since I have a 2 year old. That’s why I’m only taking small pieces to have a look and then put them back down.

I also spoke to the neighbors who’ve been here since 1952. They said the man who lived here for 40+ years always had it covered with wall-to-wall carpet so they don’t know about the condition of the wood floor. I’m hoping 40 years of carpet is a good thing. This house isn’t anything fancy or grand and I imagine the family that lived here when the house was built probably worked at one of the factories nearby that has since closed. I think it would have cost a lot of money to take out the original floors and replace it with new wood at any point in history so I don’t think they would have had the money. The neighbors also told me the vinyl on the outside of our house was put up 12 years ago but the wood underneath was in pretty good condition so there is that to thing about as well.

[Baytkadim]

Here is the wood on the first floor.