A Mystery Afoot: Flaming Flooring at Historic Hawley-Hutzler
Why do these floorboards on two sides of a zig zag line look so different? One side of the line has all straight-grained boards with narrow spacing of the growth lines. On the other side of the line are a few straight-grained boards but mostly coarse wavy or flame-like boards.
The boards are toothed together and overlap 10½ inches. Because the boards on the coarse-grained side are slightly narrower, the toothing is irregular. This is a unique joint in my experience.
Most rooms on the second floor of the Hawley-Hutzler House have the tight, straight-grained floorboards that appear to be heart pine. A straight grain pattern indicates that they were cut perpendicular to the growth rings, either the middle boards plain-sawn straight down the middle of the log, or quarter sawn with alternating cuts at 90-degree angles starting at the center.
As the cuts through a log get closer to and parallel to the curved outside edges, the grain pattern get wavier with wider spacing between the darker summerwood and the lighter springwood rings. Likely Southern Yellow Pine, this type of board is lower quality because they wear more easily and are more likely to cup or warp. Interestingly, there are no knots, but a few boards have waney edges.
What’s a Waney Edge?
According to the Dictionary of Building Preservation, a waney edge is a rounded edge on a sawn timber that was part of the original outside curve of the log. Also known as bark edge or wane.
A Mystery Afoot…Under Foot
Because Martin Hawley was a lumber merchant who used the finest woods elsewhere in the house, it seems unlikely that he scrimped on the flooring in one room. So, it looks like the flooring was replaced in half of the room after the original construction. But why? There doesn’t appear to be any fire damage, and a partition wall put in during the medical office era was a good four feet away.
What do you think? Why the mystery replacement?
Glossary of pine wood grain synonyms:
Straight, vertical, comb, edge
Wavy, flat, cathedral
Other wood species can also have grain figures like flame, curly, bird’s-eye, silver and cross.