The hole-y floor boards…

One of the beautiful things about old Queensland homes is that they were built out of local timber, and they ran these gorgeous hardwood floor boards from one end of the house to the other in gorgeous straight runs of gorgeous craftsmanship. Ours are unusually skinny, hugely varied in colour and we love them.

The boys took the walls up, and called us to come have a look. Turns out the old boys who built our place took some short cuts! There’s big gaps between the boards under the walls (someone wanted a POETS 50 years ago?!). There’s boards that need to come out for the staircase, so that will give us some timber to patch with, but it’s not going to be enough to round. So we have to make the heartbreaking decision to lose half the floor space in the new upstairs to floorboards. Off to Tile Wizard to choose some alternate flooring.

The guest room is going to be upstairs, both sets of folks would prefer carpet anyway, so that’s one room sorted. The office doesn’t really matter (big sad face), so it’s just really part of the kitchen we need to find an alternate for. Turns out our tastes in flooring are a little bit more expensive than the rest of our tastes — we choose the most expensive, but clearly gorgeous, in the shop.

We came to terms with the decision, accepted our new reality despite our floorboard heartbreak. Turns out expensive fake alternative is a rather good motivator for the carpenters! Next time we visit the house they have pulled out the most magnificent craftsmanship on the timbers. They ended up taking up all the floorboards, and meticulously re-laying them throughout in new positions so that the floors look seamless. We ended up only losing the guest room (fluffy night time floor for our mums!), and the floors are going to look incredible. Still filthy, scratched and covered in ex-tile crap at the moment. But wow. Just at the end, when all the walls are in, and the polishers come in to finish it, wow. Can’t wait!