Quote Originally Posted by Teacher Terry View Post
?.. The previous owners put pergo over hardwood floors so we removed it carefully so someone else could use it. The floors were in beautiful shape and we just had to sand and seal. No clue why they put pergo over them.
Because people are basically stupid?

In my neighborhood it was common to cover the pine floors with linoleum about 1930-- and carpet after that, about 1960--

So that meant that these soft pine floors really only were used bare for about 50 years. All of the junk on top of them helped to preserve them. Then in the 1980's, 100 years after the floors went in, people pulled up the junk and had nice wood floors although many people have covered the old pine with hard oak.

Our houses had custom shutters and many homeowners here tell about prying the old shutters out of their custom made cubbies inside the wall where they had been folded up , hiding for 60-80 years. In the 1920's pull down blinds were popular, so people put away their shutters. same with pocket doors, many houses had the pocket doors pushed into the wall cavity and painted over, so decades later restorationists found them.