Distressed: Distressing is a popular option that can be used on any species of flooring. A combination of methods are utilized to replicate the time worn look of floors in historic homes. We distress and treat the floor with an especially-created HFC product that allows the stain to “age” into the wood. This gives the “bumps and bruises” aged wood look that only comes with years of everyday wear and tear.
Custom Treatment Options
Worm Holes: Worm holes as a treatment option add a look of reclaimed or old aged flooring. This treatment option can be added to any species of wood flooring.
Hand Scraped: Any species of wood can be custom-crafted with sculpting (hand scraping) to your preference. We recommend this feature where an old world, primitive or castle plank style floor is preferred. These floors are simply unique and extremely warm and charming–no doubt the differentiating feature of any home. People are just “wowed” and overwhelmed by these floors when they see them. Most client comment to us that their friends first question is, “how did you ever save these old floors?” Truth is they’re brand new, just made to look centuries old.
Blackened Edges: Also known as “French bleed”, blackened edges add an element of authenticity to a floor. Any of our species can be used to produce this look, with blackened and hand-beveled edges. We literally take every board one at time and hand plane each edge giving it a very historically, old world look.
Beveled Edge: Old world floors tended to have some gaps in the floors. Anyone that’s ever been in an old house can attest to seeing the “cracks in the floor”. One reason was to allow heat to rise up through the planks to upper floors. Other times, gaps developed as a result of the floor planks shrinking and drying out over time. At Historic Floor, we re-create this by hand planning the edges one plank at a time. Please specify whether you want them light, medium or heavily beveled.
Blackened Grain: Our exclusive blackened grain treatment adds a depth and charm to the grain of any wood floor species you select. This “dirty-grain” effect is achieved by applying our unique blend of black butterfat paint and drying agents that penetrate deep into the grain of the wood. We then hand plane and sand each plank to perfection.
Wire Brushed: If you wish to achieve a look that appears to have been heavily trafficked, our wire brush treated flooring is a great option. This surface texture allows us to remove the soft-grain in any wood species giving the remaining wood a unique and antique/weathered look.
Adzed: In early times, most floor planks were laid across the floor joist where they butted up to one another. Then they were leveled using jack planes and the foot adz—the same tool used to hew logs. The foot adz was used to hew the planks to ensure there was not height variance between the planks where the boards butted or ran parallel to on another. These adzing marks revealed themselves over the years by taking on the dirt and oils of everyday life. Our Historic Adz Treatment recreates a unique surface treatment of another era and days gone by.
Square Pegs: Square pegs replicate the “tree nails” that were used since the time of Roman timber-framing. At Historic Floor we use a premium grade of American Black Walnut hardwood to “stud” the butt ends of floor planks of your choice. This look replicates the way many early floors would have utilized wooden pegs to fasten planks directly to the structural support timbers below. Tree nails (pegs) preceded steel square nails and were also used after the Iron Age when steel fasteners were not available or affordable. Our Historic Square Peg Treatment is very popular with the Mission and Castle Revival styles.