Featured Project
The Maple Farmhouse
Restored hardwood · Litchfield County
Save the floor, keep the house.
The owners of this 1890s farmhouse assumed the dark, scratched red oak had to go. Under the wear, though, the boards were sound — two-and-a-quarter-inch strip with decades of life left. We talked them into restoration, and the savings paid for the kitchen tile.
The challenge
Years of pet stains, a patched furnace cut, and traffic lanes worn gray. Several boards were too far gone to sand, and the old oil finish had yellowed the whole field to near-black.
What we did
We wove salvaged red oak into the damaged areas, sanded to bare wood in three passes with dust containment, and finished with three coats of water-based poly in a natural tone — no stain, just the wood as it is. Four days, start to walkthrough.
