What type of wood is this?

dobiedisco

I purchased a bungalow built in 1920 that will be moved to my property. Decided to see what is under the carpet in the master bedroom (only room with carpet). There is wood flooring that's had a small piece replaced in one area and has a metal panel in another. Lot of paint splattered on it and what appears to be a poor stain job. I may pull back the carpet on the other half of the room and see what surprises are awaiting, but am curious if anyone knows what type of wood this is? The close-up is more representative of the color. Thanks!

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Nestor_Kelebay

It looks like stained fir to me.

Normally, you'd use a hardwood for a floor, but apparantly softwoods were often used in the upper floors of older homes because the upper floor was basically just bedrooms. So, what little traffic there was upstairs was either barefoot or stocking feet.

If this is a bungelow, they may have gotten that wood from the demolition of a different house?

dobiedisco

If it is fir, would it be best to cover it?

747

No wood floors are in and add more value then carpet. What is going on with all the white paint on the floor. Finally sand and refinish. Nothing wrong with doug fir on those floors. Actually straight grain doug fir is big bucks for floors.

Nestor_Kelebay

Fir is prolly the hardest of the softwoods (or pine?). Still, you need a true hardwood (maple or oak or whatever) to stand up well on a floor.

If it were me, I'd probably only refinish it in anticipation of selling the house. Until then, I'd probably put down underpad using double sided carpet tape (to avoid putting even more staples into the wood) and replace the carpet.

26yrsinflooring

This is true name for the expected fir... but the fir implied here as douglas fir is not fir at all it is a hemlock. The two are mistaken quote often.

This floor looks like Virgin Pine,(Pinus) It certainly pine, we are currently remodeling a house with this same floor it has a very nice clear look an it is hard to match up with any good quartersawn pine that produce today.

I will agree It is a rare and should be peserved if at all possible.

Allison1888

I'd vote for pine because of what looks like knots -- hard to tell in a picture. In either case, I would keep it. It has tons of character. We had fir in the bedrooms of one house and it looked great.

troubleseeker

Looks like fir or old growth heart pine.. I would not hesitate to refiinish it. Although fir is not technically a hardwood, the stuff used during this time frame was mostly vertical grain, old growth, and was used fairly often for floors. Ditto for old growth pine.