Repairing an Old Schoolhouse Floor

In Colstrip, Montana an Old Schoolhouse that was built in the 1920s was converted into a dorm for teachers when the new school was built.  They added walls and cut holes in the old maple floor for heat registers.    When I was called to help restore the original maple floor to turn the building  into a museum there was a lot of repair work to be done. 

Repairing an old maple floor requires old maple flooring.   I suggested taking up the flooring in an adjacent office so the maple was the same age as the flooring I was to repair.  The General Contractor got excited at the very suggestion.  He had just restored the trim in that room and was afraid I would break it when I removed it to obtain the flooring. 

Being sensitive to his concern I suggested cutting 6 inches away from the trim with my circular saw and removing just the center of the room.   He calmed down after I continued that I would replace the missing flooring with new maple laid at 45 degrees to the walls and add a border around the perimeter. 

The main floor ran in two different directions and there was the base of a brick chimney in the center.   My kind of challenge. 

The picture above shows where the repair work is to begin and shows where the flooring is running in two directions.   The picture below shows me carefully removing old flooring without damaging the surrounding flooring which is to remain.    It also show the width of the repair which was about 20 feet long.