Flooring
I’m not quite at the stage of fretting too much about pockmarks – the floors are still up waiting for the ‘second fix’ – but the time is looming. The Regency boards in the house are original and were cut from old trees to maximum widths of about 1 to 2ft. The aim would have been to use the smallest number of boards, thereby reducing the cost of laying them.
It was only in the smarter, more formal houses that narrower boards were used; clearly laying out (as it were) that the family were wealthy and able to afford as many craftsman hours as they desired. Houses rather like the 18th-century gem Chantry House over in Steyning where Yeats spent the latter years of his life visiting his lover, Edith Shackleton Heald. Ironically, the obverse is now true with the wider boards becoming rarer and hence a lot more expensive.
In the 1830s when my house was built, the wood might have been simply treated and scrubbed with sand and herbs and then covered with a rug. Or it might have been limewashed or oil-painted in solid colours and then stencilled. My own question is whether to wax or varnish. Wax is more forgiving and ages well but it does need buffing and polishing. Varnish is an immediately shinier and cleaner-looking surface but prone to flaking and random damage – see stilettos above.
The real worry is what to do about the solid concrete that was poured all over the lower ground floor in the 1970s when it was turned into a ‘garage’, albeit one with a beautiful York stone fireplace. In the town’s Tudor houses the daily household detritus would have been thrown on to the ground and then trampled on, eventually setting, rather like concrete. I am considering taking a leaf out of their book by scattering the surface with mint to disguise the smell and just letting it develop a whole new layer…
Next week: Hastings is away