K&B 360: Kitchen Diaries, continued

A radiator once stood below the window in the kitchen—you can see the plywood covering the spot where we cut away water-damaged floorboards.

You may have wondered what happened to my posts the last couple weeks. Well, dear reader, it’s just a touch of verisimilitude: For days on end, we called floor guy after floor guy, attempting to do the Right Thing and compare costs and work quality. And for days on end, our phone remained silent. We’re aching to move forward on this project, put cold cash into someone’s pocket—and nobody returns our calls. Maddening!

Eventually, we do line up visits from three or four refinishers. Most are of the opinion that since it would be problematic to do spot patches [it’s old-growth timber, milled in a now-obsolete dimension], we might as well rip it all out and install a new hardwood floor. The cost of doing that, we’re told, is comparable to repairing the existing floor because of the expense (in time as well as money) of locating the antique boards.

John and I discuss it, and come to a why-fix-it-if-it’s-not-broke conclusion: That it seems crazy to throw away a floor that’s 98 percent sound just for the sake of getting the job done sooner. John relates an anecdote about construction projects: “If you want something done quickly, it won’t be done well or cheaply; if you want something done cheaply, it won’t be done well or quickly; if you want something done well, it won’t be done quickly or cheaply.”

Words to remember.

Leslie Clagett
Editor, Kitchens & Baths