I love old houses!

We are fortunate enough to have very little carpet in our house, but the carpet we do have drives me to distraction. It's hard to keep clean, looks dreadful, and somehow seems to draw every single piece of pet hair towards it like a magnet. And being in the process of house-training a puppy certainly doesn't help, either. It's a good thing we don't have much.

Where we do have carpet is the stairs, upstairs hallway, playroom, and front sunroom. The sunroom isn't too bad, as we rarely go in there (it's still the catch-all of unpacked boxes - one year later!), but whoever decided that white carpet was a good idea not only in a playroom (that is what the previous owners used the room as like us), but in the only room with a door to the backyard; I want to throttle.

So needless to say, I've been looking for any excuse to replace ALL the carpet in the house. Though Chris does not share my loathing for carpet, he has been kind enough to humour me, and last weekend we just went out and purchased enough laminate (in a beautiful rosewood colour) to refloor the playroom. But that still left the stairs, and hallway.

It has been our suspicion that the upstairs hallway at least, perhaps even the stairs, had hardwood underneith the carpet, as the upstairs bedrooms all have what looks like the original flooring. But with carpet as old as we have, there was no telling if that was the case, or if it was hardwood, what shape it would be in. But yesterday I finally went ahead and took up the carpet; if only to discover what we were dealing with. And I found this:

Sure, it needs to be sanded down, the white paint splatters washed off, and there is a spot right in the middle where a previous owner tried to cover a grate-hole with plaster. But it's beautiful! Chris wasn't as impressed, he just remarked that the baseboards now need to be replaced, and the wood needs to be refinished, but I believe in it's potential. I love the old worn look, it makes me wonder how many people and generations have walked across that floor. And yes, the floor is stained a different colour from the bedrooms;

But with a little sweat equity, look how nice they turned out:

I just love old houses!