As part of the project which has me working on a rug, Jamie has been beautifully redoing the dining room floor (note: do you realize we didn’t take a ‘before’ picture yet again?).  This is a both trickier and less work than one might suppose.  It is less work than a modern floor for several reasons.  The first is that the boards, long, narrow tongue-and-groove; are rock hard and absolutely not in need of any sanding.*  Secondly, they are shellac floors.  This means that striping them is neither needed nor desired.  Clean them, rub them down with alcohol once or twice, and then a new coat can be put on.  It is tricky, however, because a shellac floor is very hard to get evenly reflective.  In an area such as the dining room, where low angle sunlight is common, and where the eye has a large expanse of floor to look across, any mistake or miss is easily seen.

However, the end result is a floor the colour of dark amber, not a solid colour but a shifting array of hues with a mirror shine.  This of course brings one to the diffuse light thing.  Mirrors are a well-known method of bringing more light into a room.**  I have observed with other rooms that once the floors are redone, the light level goes up: the floor bounces a warm light back up.  It will be very interesting to see what the effect is in the dining room.  It should be even greater than other rooms, because the ceiling is a smooth white plaster, unlike the other rooms which are painted or coloured rough plaster.

*He who sands old floors (beyond more than a light hand sanding to remove) ought to be summarily disposed of. 

**This can be taken to far: there was a memorable entirely mirrored, entirely round bathroom in Graz, Austria that I encountered.  It would have been too much at any time of day…never mind on a night out.