Someone Painted the Wood Floor On My Porch

[chopper]

Always been sort of curious what is under the indoor-outdoor carpet on the porch of a 1920s Bungalow we own. Pulled up a corner today, found light blue latex paint. Grabbed some paint stripper at Ace and laid, eventually, two coats down in a corner. Scraped it up and found some really nice seemingly maple or oak flooring, probably original. Nice grain, etc.

The porch is quite large and this would be a huge huge job if I had to do it all on my knees. Plus the stripper seems to be about the same consistency and corrosiveness of napalm.

I wonder what a contractor would get to strip, sand and refinish it.

[Black]

The light blue color is in some ways more "authentic" to the original period than restored bare wood. Are you sure it's worth the effort?

[pRICE cUBE]

I personally don't mess with another guy's wood.

[mstudio]

Is this an enclosed or open porch? If open, it was probably painted originally. I also doubt oak or even maple would have been used on an exterior porch floor. If it's an enclosed porch, probably would not have been painted originally.

[TheTominator]

pRICE cUBE wrote:
I personally don't mess with another guy's wood.

Yeah, it would be wise to let the Ace stripper do all the work.

[chopper]

The wood has stain on it, it matches the stain on the maple floor in the kitchen.

[Paul F.]

I would certainly investigate a professional floor refinishing contractor.
They have power tools suitable for stripping the floor, while vacuuming up the dust.

I'm a fan of do-it-yourself, but that's a LOT of work if it's any kind of square footage at all.

[AlphaDog]

I'd do a bit more research based on Black's suggestion. If I'm not mistaken, he's done quite a bit of study on homes built in that era. Plus, I, too, think it was more likely that the porch floor had been painted. Not only do I think it would be more consistent with the era, paint probably was far superior as a way of protecting wood than anything else available 90 years ago. My grandparents built a house with a huge front porch around 1917, and it was definitely painted when new. Still is.

[Jack D.]

>Pulled up a corner today, found light blue latex paint.

If it's a 1920's bungalow and it had latex paint on it, it's not the original finish.

According to Paint History:

"Styrene-Butadiene synthetic rubber latex was developed as the Mutual Recipe in the USA (75% butadiene, 25% styrene with a rosin soap and a little mercaptan) since isoprene did not give a useful material. Production started in 1943. The first all-acrylic latex paint was introduced commercially in 1953."

[marksomebodyelse]

Don't forget the added lead in the paint.