Historic Recovery and Restoration

 

Livengood Contracting has the ingenutity and ability to recover and restore the historic artifact.  Livengood Contracting has the experience in handling items of historic value.  Stone Headers, Cornerstones, time capsules, and the preservation and restoration for the period wood floors - no job is too large or small.  

 

Livengood Contracting is currently working with the Shrine of St. Joseph in downtown St. Louis to restore and preserve the integrity of a beautiful wood floor.  Brian Perkins researched the era and type of floor that existed in the Church.  Brian discovered that the floor was pieced together and underneath the wood was linen cloth.  He is using as much of the original wood as possible and recreating wood pieces to match where required.  Once completed the floor will look as it originally did and be able to last another 100 years.  

 

 

 

 

 

The Shrine of St. Joseph Catholic Church Wood Floor in the Sacristy

 

          Means, methods and materials necessary to completely renovate the parquet style floor in the Sacristy at the Shrine of St. Joseph Catholic Church. 

          I was made aware of this floor as long as 10 years ago by the Church’s resident Architect, Ted Wofford AIA.  Ted Wofford insisted that a remarkably unusual floor lie beneath the carpeted office behind the altar.  Removal of the carpet verified the existence of a floor comparable to that which can be seen in the formal lobby of the Rectory.

          It is important to understand at this point, the craftsmen who placed the floor have long passed away and thus, cannot be consulted regarding their knowledge of the system.            Further, as this type of floor fell out of favor and no current sources exist to specify guidance during repairs, the approach had to be reinvented. 

          This began by identifying the various species utilized and mapping their placement throughout.  Creating full sized tracings of the floor offers more than an understanding of the geometric patterns, it offers the original architects intentions which may be the most important element in the attitude necessary for remaining true to the buildings essence.

          No less than seven domestic species of hardwood are present.  Upon inspection you will find; red oak, white oak, walnut, maple, ash, mahogany, and a small but significant amount of fir.  The lumber was taken from the logs in three different ways.  That means each species is presented three ways, they are; plain sawn, quarter sawn, and rift sawn. 

          Maximum natural grain effect is achieved without stains or finishing oils added to the process.  In my opinion there can be no more appreciable method of utilizing natural materials.

          The process now must reveal how the craftsmen determined all these materials can be combined to create a durable, stable solution that includes timeless beauty.  This is where Ted’s background and professionalism becomes so important to the flooring woodworker.  His insistence that a fabric backed system was utilized was proven as we began removing elements and located exactly the materials he was indicating were beneath the wear and damage.

          Brett Miller from The Hardwood Flooring Association was contacted for his expertise.  He visited and brought with him a 1904 Version of the Rogers Flooring Catalog which depicted several of the patterns found on the floor of the Sacristy.  As two of the patterns appear to be a close match, it is my belief that if this company existed during the construction of the Sacristy, a strong possibility exists that Rogers may have provided the components as a vendor to the builder. 

          The elements are part of a system marketed as ‘Wood Carpet’ and instructions in the catalog dictate the steps involved to order a complete layout.

 

We now have sufficient history revealing when and what, we still need the how.

Beginning at the walls the border is made up of 14” wide x 24” panels of alternating walnut and oak strips.  A walnut band separates the panels as the design progresses towards the center of the layout.  This 45° angled areas also compensates dimensionally and allows the unusual shape of the room to transpose to the final rectangular shape of the central area.  A walnut, ash, and mahogany strip creates the visual break from the border while establishing the perimeter of the central design.  Twelve inch by Twelve inch tiles of walnut and oak create a 24” wind milled geometric patterned path around a walnut and oak saw tooth border that surrounds a maple field, divided by walnut, all framing an intricate walnut, oak, and fir eight pointed compass in the center of the floor. 

          To recreate the elements that are too badly deteriorated or damaged, we followed Ted’s knowledge of the system and duplicated the method of adhering 7 ounce canvas to individual strips of decorative hardwood in the patterns found.  These assemblies are shop fabricated in an up-side-down orientation for absolute match during installation.  We allocated period lumber reclaimed from sources that specialize in vintage materials to retain the natural characteristics such as growth ring patterns. 

          Upon installation, it was discovered that subflooring is as much a factor in the damage as was the flood realized in the 1970’s.  The sub-flooring is 5/4 clear fir tongue and groove, that may not have been kiln dried prior to use, and subsequently shrank to a point that allowed complete separation of the joint.  This complete separation of the joint consequently led to boards that came loose from the joists as a result of live loading.  As ‘cut nails’ were the standard, the now known performance of that particular nail needs minimal pulling force to dislodge the nail and create a loose attachment point.  The loose nail along with exaggerated shrinkage allowed deflection in the floor that when aligned with seams in the finished flooring allowed breakage in the manufactured aspects of the system.  Separation of tongue and groove is also apparent along these aligned subfloor and finish flooring as gaps in the finished floor that simply opened as the subfloor dried and shrank then separated over time. 

          It is my professional opinion that water damage from the 1970’s flooding episode factors less than the ill-fated combination of the cut nails performance, lack of sufficiently dried subflooring, building subsidence, and unfortunate alignment of subfloor and finish flooring along with complete lack of underlayment (plywood did not exist during the initial installation.) is the greatest factor in the damage we encountered and repaired.  The thin characteristics of the system would have dried quickly and though distortion indicates water damage that required replacement we encountered less water damage than based on inherent instability.  

          During replacement no less than six subfloor planks were removed and replaced with planks sized to fill the wider openings and screwed in place over a bed of subfloor adhesive.  Further, each time flooring was removed that crossed over a joist, that attachment was reinforced with a screw. 

          The repair of the floor quickly became a process of locating broken, loose, split or delaminated elements, then determining how much removal was needed.  Following a regimen of cleaning the exposure, adding vapor barrier, placing the canvas carrier layer, applying expanding urethane adhesive, then face nailing replacement hardwood in the patterns as done initially.

          All areas of the floor that had been deflecting and damaged or completely deteriorated are now replaced and stable. 

          The entire floor was four step sanded to level replacement wood to existing wood and the process of blending new, crisp repairs to the distressed existing floor is necessary.  This is a board by board process necessary to make all replacement hardwood completely inconspicuous.  The replacement ‘new’ wood is nearly 25% of the entire floor. 

          Final finishing will include catalyzed water based urethane that is applied over the process will meet the finish manufacturers requirements for performance and warranty. Three layers of clear finish will be applied with light abrading between applications to create a finish commercially designed for use on a basketball court floor.  New thresholds are furnished at all six openings and include the proper method of lipping over the edge of the parquet system for added stability.  

          A historically significant Holy Water Font has been refurbished and will be reinstalled with dimensionally correct base shoe mould to complete the project.