Here are some shots of the parquet flooring that can be found on the first and second floors. As I mentioned before the flooring design has a dark strip that outlines certain features of whatever room it runs through. It seems like a nice, simple, artistic device to lend a simple layout more weight. Since the nature of the outline was to run around the room and out the doorways to the next room, it has made some of the alterations done over time look awkward. For instance, in the second photo, note that the door (now a closet door) no longer match the outlining strip. We were able to figure out that the hall closet was not original. It was a hallway to the dining
room. Bear in mind that it's a Victorian after all. There are multiple doorways to and from every room. The third picture shows the outlining design pretty well. The hallway parquet flooring had sticky backed linoleum across its length. I used a heat gun to soften the tiles and the loosen the glue. Denatured alcohol and steel wool removed the rest. A good sanding will fix the rest.