September, 1911 
HOUSE AND GARDEN 
167 
it can be finished off with varnish and either used bare or with 
rugs, and it can be made cheaply enough that if desirable it can 
be covered with carpet in the winter. 
Carpenters and builders do not as a rule advocate these extreme 
narrow units in a floor. It is not to their direct interest to do so, 
because it takes more nails and more time to put the floor down, 
but eventually they will have to come to it; besides where the 
flooring is rightly made and is end-matched, the joints can be 
made anywhere regardless of whether they are over a joist or not, 
and in this way it does not require a great deal more time or even 
as much waste in lumber to lay a floor as with 4 inch stock. 
In building a new house one of the best plans is to lay all the 
plain floors of standard thickness, 13/16, up-stairs and down, with 
stock only \}/ 2 inches wide. This gives a neat appearance and 
safeguards against unsightly cracks. If it is a floor that is sim¬ 
ply to be painted over, it needs no further treatment than just 
painting, but if a more artistic finish is desired it can be gone 
over with a smoothing plane or a scraper and then filled and var¬ 
nished, and it makes a very attractive floor no matter what kind 
of wood is used. 
The writer has just been through some experience with flooring 
in the building of a new house in which the original intention was 
to make the up-stairs floor of comparatively narrow widths in 
pine, and the down-stairs floors in oak. Half of the down-stairs, 
the library, kitchen, and side hall was to be finished with plain 
thick oak of common grade, and the parlor and dining room with 
thin oak flooring laid on top of a sub-floor with a striped border 
and rug effect, and the front hall with parquetry and borders. 
The up-stairs floor of inch pine was laid first. Then, the 
plain oak floor down-stairs was laid with No. 1 common iy 2 inch 
oak 13/16 thick right on the joists. 
After figuring it up and looking at it when finished the pine 
floor which had looked fairly well at first was decidedly disap¬ 
pointing as compared to the oak floor in narrow strips, because 
after the heat had been on in the house for awhile it showed 
cracks, whereas there is hardly 
a crack visible in the oak floor. 
What made it all the worse, 
too, was the discovery on cast¬ 
ing up the figures that the 
pine floor had cost exactly as 
much as the oak. It had taken 
a little more time and trouble 
to lay the oak, but the cost of 
material was the same in each 
case. Therefore, if it were to 
be done over again all the 
plain floors up-stairs and 
down would be laid in No. 1 
common oak 13/16 of an inch 
thick and scraped and finished 
with a filler and varnish using 
a special varnish on the kitchen floor to stand mopping with water. 
After this experience when it came to finishing up with the 
porches there was involved about a thousand feet in porch floors. 
This instead of being made of pine, cypress, or even of concrete, 
was made of the same stock used in the kitchen and library, 1 
inch face 13/16, No. 1 common oak, and painted. 
It would be in order to digress for awhile here on the sub¬ 
ject of porch flooring to say that for a porch that is up off of the 
ground and can be mounted on piers and the air allowed to cir¬ 
culate underneath, a good wood floor is much more satisfactory 
than one of concrete. It is healthier and really looks neater. 
Moreover, it will last if kept painted. That is the secret of wood¬ 
work exposed to the weather; keep it painted. Renew the paint 
on it every year, and it will last indefinitely. And in this way a 
good solid wooden floor with air circulating underneath will per¬ 
haps last as long in a porch as a concrete floor. 
Where a man does not intend to go into artistic borders and 
rug effects in his floors he can get a neat floor that will justify 
finishing off with varnish and wax by using i )/ 2 inch stock. If 
he has a new house he can use it in standard thickness without 
a sub floor by having it end matched and let the joints come 
wherever they will. If it is in an old house and it is desired to 
put the floor on top of an old floor take a thinner stock, take Y 
inch strips i l / 2 inches wide and he can get border effects. 
It is the original floor construction particularly in mind now, 
however, and one strong point it is desired to emphasize is that it 
need not cost any more to get a floor that you can be proud of, 
than it does to get an ordinary floor that you have to cover up 
with carpet. Go to your planing mill or lumberman and insist on 
getting narrow stock. It doesn’t matter whether it is oak, pine, 
maple or beach, you should insist on the narrow units just the 
same, as this is the secret of getting artistic effects in an ordinary 
floor. It is the one thing that eliminates the unsightly cracks and 
makes the floor attractive. 
The oak floor, where it can be had at anything like reasonable 
prices, is more durable and 
more satisfactory generally, 
and if you are anywhere near 
the oak territory you can get 
what is called the No. 1 com¬ 
mon grade of oak at about the 
same price you can get good 
common pine. This is a grade 
that has sound knots, some 
small worm holes, and little 
rough places in the flooring, 
and some bright sap, but by- 
throwing out a few pieces ancf 
selecting and fitting your stuff 
up carefully you can get a 
floor that when filled and fin- 
(Continued on page 187) 
The wide cracks in the old-fashioned floors, which one was so accus¬ 
tomed to see when the twelve inch boards of pioneer days were 
used, are obviated by the use of narrow widths 
