Blood, Sweat and Tears: Sanding the Hardwood Floors

I am not going to lie, after being short on sleep for a week, being sore and stressed I am not excited to talk about the sanding down process for the hardwood floors. I actually feel quite bitter because most of the machinery we rented was too big for me to operate and John and Bryna had to do most of the grunt work.  I will share pictures, but I don't want to talk about it.

The varnish was so thick we stripped it off.

It was very dusty

Luckily all of the blood, sweat and tears were contained and did not land on the freshly sanded floors.

Repairing holes in Hardwood Floors

There were two holes between the living room and dining room. Bryna and I originally projected that built-in cabinets had been here when we uncovered them during the carpet removal.

Since then we weren't as sure, they could have been made when upgrading to a forced air system. Upon some investigation, the one that was a cold air return wasn't doing much.

I decided we could add a new cold air return to the kitchen and we removed the awkward one at the bottom to the stairs.

Leaving a gaping hole in the floor. Bryna went to the restore to pick up other old maple boards.  They were the perfect groove shape but too wide so the next morning I picked up a table saw.

The first step was prepping the holes, we didn't want all of the new boards to end on the same line. This including planning where they would end, based on the length of the new boards and any defects, like cracks holes or discoloration. Drilling holes (holy schmoley) and lots of chiseling.

Until after hours (a lot of them) we had the holes the shape that we wanted them.

Then we had to clean up around the edges of the sub floor. I am not very talented with saws.

John and Bryna made their hole much nicer. I have a lot to work on.

Create new supports for the sub floor

replace the sub floor

and finally cover the holes with the boards that needed like 10 cuts to make them the right size. One for width, 2 to make the new groove, 2 to trim down the tongue, 1 to length... OK that is only 6, but it sure felt like ten, there were a lot of boards.

The red paper was used to make the floor level.

WOW, I am still amazed by this picture, and the hole covering.  The floor feels solid and three is only one squeaky board.

oh my goodness this was a long project.

We were a little bit slap happy by 10pm Saturday night and discovered that old maple saw dust can me molded into snow balls and made into snowmen.

But the floors look amazing.  Then they just have to be sanded down... 

Things that I never would have gotten to do had we not redone the maple floors at Crashden:

Used acid on them to try to take out spots, applied with a tooth brush, but I think rugs will work better

Sweep a wall

Vacuum a window, including: the glass, the sill, the top, the frame and everything in between

Gotten 6 or less hours of sleep a night for 6 consecutive nights; tonight would make it 7…

Lay on bare wood floors

Dissolve into tears during the phone call to the appliance company after they delivered an electric dryer instead of a gas dryer and told me they are going to bring over a electric range and replace my gas range (I really like the gas range)

Sing Christmas carols (loudly and badly) into my respirator when operating machinery and know that no one can hear me

Used a vacuum to clean up before going home

Had bits of maple wood floors from the 1920’s on my eye balls

And a SPECIAL thanks to Bryna and John who have put in so much work this week with me and have really scarificed body, sleep and mental state.  (we aren't done yet either, but the sanding is!)

Recipe: Slow Cooker Carnitas

1 onion

1 packet of taco seasoning

3 lbs pork shoulder

1 10oz can of enchilada sauce

Peppers (green or red)

Tortillas

Cook (first 5 ingredients) 8 hours on low, add peppers after 4 hours.  Serve with tortillas

Keep Calm and Sand the Floor

We have been working on finishing the floors since last week, we have had several set backs, and projects that have taken longer than antipated (no, I am not surprised in the least) but I don't have any complete projects to share.  We have been making lots of stripper jokes, because of using gallons of paint stripper.  The best one so far was from John who said 'I'm faster than the stripper.'  Lack of sleep could be leading us to be easily entertained.

It has been a good week for buying new tools.  Dad says for each project you should buy a new tool. I got a muilti-tool midweek last week and I hope that the table saw covers me for a few projects.

Please have some positive thoughts that the floors come together quickly, more quickly than expected at least. And that John, Bryna and I do not over sleep or fall asleep at work, or have any other bad consequences for lack of sleep due to working on the floors. Hopefully I will have some good photos to share by early next week.

Workshop

Previous residents has use think board to cover the basement ceiling, we needed access for things like outlets and duct work inspections so we took them down.

It quickly became a space to store tools and trim boards.  But we needed a space to actually work once the upstairs was to a livable condition. (not to say that I haven't lived in houses in worse condition, just that we were doing a lot of work in the rooms that will not be possible when we move my furniture in)

Turning the basement into a work shop

Adding Shelves

We also added hooks for tool belts and saws.

The band saw was anchored to a cabinet that we acquired from the road side.

Recipe: Luau Meatballs

3lb meat balls

Garlic

¼ cup Brown sugar

2 Cans of Pineapple (I think the more the better so I used like 3 14oz cans some crushed and some chunks)

2 or 3 Red bell peppers

9oz jar of sweet and sour sauce

Cook 3-5 hours on low if they are precooked meatballs, serve over rice

This recipe was a great success

Removing the Railing on the Landing

Problems with the railing on the landing:

1.       It is too short

2.       It is going to be a pain to sand around

It needed to be removed but for safety sake (whatever safety it provides) I wanted to wait as long as possible to remove it. And I didn’t know how to get it out with the railing in tack.  It was recommended that I save the actual rail and reconfigure it to sit about a foot higher, and I do like reusing materials. 

So while I painted a second coat on the winter room, Bryna took a look at it.  She concluded that getting the spindles out in tack could ruin the steps. So she suggested cutting them in half with a saw.

This worked very well.

Then the spindles could be pulled out by hand, leaving nails sticking out.  But that will be fixed in due time.

Auction

Sometime, in the distant future we are going to add built in cabinets, one on the landing and two in the living room.  John threw out the idea that we could buy a cabinet and modify it for our purposes, Bryna and I are on board. As we were searching for said cabinet on craig’s list Bryna came across some awesome stain glass cabinet doors (see below) that were going up for auction, that night. So we went to the auction, much to John’s dismay he had to do homework.

The auction was pretty much amazing entertainment as we pondered who these people were and why did they want these things. Costume jewelry, toy tractors, GI Joe clothes, old lipstick containers, dolls, a tin lunch pail, parking meters, creepy horse figurines, the usual.

The stained glass cabinet doors went for more than what I was will to pay, some people were really adamant about wanting them, all 6 of them….

But we did get this stained glass lamp shade that will look awesome above the dining room built in.

Crown Moulding in the Winter Room

The original plan was to sand the top finish off the paint and repaint the trim white. 

One of the crown pieces was not nailed in snuggly so as Bryna went to fix it the paint started chipping off.

What started as a sand and re-paint project turned into another scraping project. We were only going to scrap until it started to get really difficult, well it never got difficult and after many hours and sore arms the crown molding was free of paint.

With a bunch of paint chips on the floor it seemed wrong to paint the oak crown moulding again, even if we did prep, prime and paint it right.  We scrapped most of the finish off with a carbide scrapper to reduced the time and number of sheets of 80 used.  The 80 grit was followed by 120 grit sand paper.  We picked out a warm oak stain.

Just like the directions say, Bryna prepped a small section to do a sample on, we were happy with the warm wood tone that it had and continued on with sanding.

It was a lot of sanding.  While sanding I though that I had inhaled to much dust making my throat sore, a few days later I realized I might actually be coming down with something.

The actual staining part of the process goes very fast.

We aren't done with the crown moulding but this is how it is going to look for awhile. (pretty much awesome)

The Rolling Island

So while I was painting over Thanksgiving weekend, Bryna and John were secretly working on a custom made rolling island.  They had to bring it over on Friday because they had underwater hockey peeps staying with them.

I was very excited.

We used Emmet’s Good Stuff wax to seal the top. It really made the wood grain pop, ie it turned even more pretty.  They let me do this part so that I could really feel like I was part of the process.  

There is more to finish on this project, but other projects are higher priority. 

Week 9

Monday (11/26)- 220 and 600 grit sand paper- great for sanding the bottom of a boat, not so useful for house projects. (I am so sick of painting)

Tuesday- we were going to get so much done, it was going to be a productive night; Bryna was going to join in the fun. Until I rear ended a car on 94 east bound (sorry!) now the car is in the shop making logistics of getting to and from the house complicated to say the least.  It has not been a good week for cars.

I am fine by the way.

Bryna picked me up from the tow company, cooked me dinner, packed me two lunches and took me home.  I am in good hands.  They also picked up a butcher block counter top for me (gently used). It is awesome! I can’t wait to chop veggies on it.

Wednesday- the plan was to sand the crown moulding in the winter room and paint it white, but somehow these things never go as planned. Jason had painted over vanished wood without sanding it so the paint chips right off of it.  We got about 45% of it off. There are paint chips everywhere, good thing all of the kid were removed from the property. (I hear that kids like to eat paint chips, there were a few that landed in my month, at a certain age you must outgrow the taste for them)

John and Bryna brought over the rolling island that they created over the Thanksgiving holiday:

 

Laura helped us make progress on the dining room woodwork:

 

Dad installed a new fan:

 

Week 8

So writing about painting is about as much fun as reading about it or watching it dry, so instead I am going to tell you about the things that happen after inhaling too many fumes.

Sunday- While painting the ceiling in the winter room white I lost my roller. As in I was rolling white paint onto the ceiling and all of a sudden I could not see where the roller was at, but I was still holding on to the extender arm… it just like- disappeared.

(11/19) Monday I was painting the ceiling in the dining room, using Uncle Larry’s technique. So I was rolling paint onto the ceiling and I must have gotten turned around because when I looked back down I was facing a different direction than what I was expecting. This was actually quite freaky. I also got the surprise that the primer was significantly darker than the paint. (see above)

My painting skills do not improve after a beer or two, and it is not that my edging gets worse.  It is actually the rolling that needs touch up later.

After a full day of painting, Les stumbled down the stairs.  Luckily it was the stairs to the basement which are fewer and didn’t have wet paint on the walls.

Washing out the rollers with the orange paint (see page 3 and 4) looked like the murder scene if a pumpkin.

But for what you really want to see, some before and after pictures (with various stages of the before)