Please, walk on me

I visited our photographer and newly minted renovator Juan Luna this morning to see how his house was coming along. (You’ll recall that one of his projects was the renovation of his mini-bathroom.) He took me on a tour of the myriad fixes, upgrades and repairs that he’s done. One of them was a treatment of the wood floors on his second floor. So far, he’s sanded and stained them a dark hue. (I think it’s called “espresso.”) He just has to lay down two coats of polyurethane and he’s done. But, I noticed, the floors still squeaked.

“I know I was going to fix that, but the sound of the floor reminds me of my youth in Mexico. All the houses there sound like this,” Juan said moving around the room to pick up the floor squawk. The standard Canadian floor, he claimed, was too quiet.

Juan then got into other differences between Mexico and Canada.

“Why have a floor if you can’t walk on it? Leave your shoes on.” he said. ” I get it: if it’s winter and you don’t want to make a mess, yes, take off the boots. But for the rest of the time, who cares? Floors are supposed to have scratches on them.”

And he does practice what he preaches. He hasn’t bothered to cover this floors when trades have been in and out of his place doing work. While his refinished second floor has a fresh coat of stain, it still has a distressed look. There’s still character in those boards.

Now, I must come clean. I fall on the opposite end of the spectrum from Juan. I have laminate floors and I do my best to keep them looking like new. I do appreciate Juan’s laid back approach, though. It’s probably more practical too. But, there’s something in me that keeps me from being so laissez-faire.

What do you think? Do you walk on your new or old floors with shoes on? Or do you try to keep the floors pristine? As this post goes up, the debate is spilt 50/50 on our Facebook page: it’s Canadian to take your shoes off at the door and it’s Canadian to leave them on (after wiping on a mat, of course).