Removing Tile from Hardwood Floors

Today the guys started taking up the tile flooring from upstairs… and Pauline just continues to surprise us with perfectly intact original hardwood floors.

The tile comes up very easily as it looks like the mortar has dried out to almost dust. Using a crowbar we were able to break each piece of tile free. We then used a scraper to gently scrape as much of the mortar that was stuck to the hardwood as we could, being careful not to harm the wood.

Becuase the mortar was applied directly to the hardwood floors, it has significantly dried out the wood. This is going to make it much more difficult to restore, but we are going to try. Curious what the wood looked like hydrated I used a damp sponge and just a few drops of water… and Pauline came right back to life.

Unfortunately within minutes the wood looked super dry and dusty again, but this glimpse of what is possible gave me hope. We are not ready to refinish the floors yet, but when we are, I am confident we will be very happy with the final results.