Stumped.

So I found the spot where my next-door neighbor's neighbor almost burned down my house when she was a kid (she said it was her sister's fault, and I know a candle was involved.) It wasn't the living room as she said--it was in the entry room, where I'm taking up the flooring.

Actually, I'm glad I found it because we had intended to bring the piano in from the kitchen door, and it would have rolled right over this (rather large) spot. And I just bet the floor wouldn't have held the piano and it would have ended up in the crawlspace, and I would have had to take up the floor anyway!

I have that spot covered up by a rug at the moment, so no pics of that. However, today as I worked to pull up the last bit of flooring, I found something else:

It is wood, and an exact rectangle. At first I thought it was another burned spot (little firebugs!) however now I'm not sure. The linoleum isn't melted like it is in the other spot, and this seems too deliberate.

I'm pretty sure this room was the kitchen at one time--could it have been where a cabinet once sat? There are metal strips tacked to the wood, presumably covering up holes.

This is plywood, I think, put down over top what looks like tar paper overtop who knows what (probably the original floor or subfloor, I guess.) There's a gap where the short baseboard sat that allowed me to see the tarpaper, which I didn't disturb, other than to suck all the gunk out of the gap.

As you can see here, it's obvious that the linoleum was burned. So I really don't think this is another burned spot. (This is the small part that isn't covered by the rug along with the flooring that was glued down on the burned wood, which makes it next to impossible to get off.)

The burned spot spans the entrance to the kitchen almost exactly. I am wondering if they decided to put the door to the kitchen there for that reason alone.


Mabel isn't very happy to stay in the kitchen while I'm working in her room, but she'll just have to live. The burned spot is about sixteen inches wide, maybe more in the middle, and spans the entire entrance of the kitchen and spreads a bit on either side. I'm still not sure what I will do with these two spots eventually--for now they will be covered up, I guess. At least there's no gaping holes in the floor!