5,000 Words Lost Forever

I left my camera at work last night so I was unable to photograph any of the progress we made towards finishing the landing and bedroom. I mean, if a picture is worth a thousand words and I could have taken just four or five crummy little pictures last night, I wouldn't have to be writing all this stuff now.

Actually, we didn't make that much progress last night. In order to complete this project in a timely manner, we are now on a schedule. Also, we really want this to be done and getting to this point, it's exciting to realize we are almost home.

I am hoping to have the first coat of Polyeurothane on the floor by Sunday night. In order for that to happen, a tightly choreographed series of events must take place at just the right time.

Last night, I did some minor repairs to a couple places on the floor. Susan did some touch up painting. We also decided that if we are going to put up Crown Moulding in the Landing area, it would be best to do it now while the floor is still un-stained. So, I painted the Crown Moulding out on the front porch and brought it in this morning. I'm having Phil install it this afternoon.

I'm renting the sander on my way home from work tonight and will do the final sanding. Then we have to get everything cleaned back up and ready for the staining.

This would have been so much better with pictures.

Filling the Gorges

We had a fairly easy night of work last night. We set about the task of filling the gaps, gouges and small canyons that is the landscape of our floor. The worst part of the floor is this 10 foot by 4 foot section I had to totally replace. You can see from the picture that we pretty much trowled putty into the whole area. I'll be taking lots of detailed pictures of this section as we progress to see its transformation. Fortunately, this area will be covered by a bookcase and a rug and anything else we can throw over it.

$550.00

We spent some money this weekend. Another way to look at it is we saved a lot more money than we spent. I have had people tell me that re-finishing a floor costs about $6.00 a square foot. That would be $3,000.00 for the approximately 500 square feet we worked on this weekend.

Of course, we're not done yet. We still have a few supplies to buy. But let's take a look at what we did!




















I would say we done good! The floors are not perfect. You can see in the after picture that section on the left that looks substantially different the the rest of the floor. That's the area I had to patch because it used to be a closet. The wood I used has a different grain to it and there is just no getting around the fact that it will not be a close match.

However, we plan to use a fairly dark stain which will help to hide the difference as well as all the other imperfections in the old wood floor.

The main thing is that we have gotten it done. Here's a good before and after shot of the crew, Mark, Susan & Stan.

Knee Deep in Sanding

We spent Saturday prepping everything for the arrival of the big floor sander. I rented an edge sander and finished all the edges. Below is a picture of the Alto-Clarke SR-7 Edge Sander and an example of what it does. I had to finish off that little corner piece with my belt sander.

I went to Home Depot bright and early on Sunday and got the sander. My friend Mark accompanied me because he just refinished his floors last year and was familiar with what we needed to get and do.

We ended up returning the sander almost immediately because we couldn't get it to start. It had a short or something in the electrical system. When we got it back to the Depot, it ran fine. The guy suggested that it might be a power problem on my end. I told him I had new wiring with 20 amp breakers which he agreed should be okay.

We swapped out sanders, he re-set the time, and we were off again. This time, the sander operated within normal operational sanding protocols.

So, our early start and subsequent stalls had me sanding the floors by 1:00PM.

We realized almost immediately that we would have to put down some stripper first to get the best result.

Susan dashed to the Depot while Mark and I continued working.

As of today, the bedroom is entirely stripped and ready for sanding. We are all very sore. Susan and Mark will continue stripping the remaining portion of the floors while I rip into the sander.

We hope to have everything sanded by the end of the day.

Well, enough of this blogging. I have work to do.

Countdown to Sanding

We are really zooming ahead now. We have accomplished a lot this week and I attribute our efficiency and speed to one thing. The end of the Network Television Season. Now that all our favorite shows are into re-runs, we have stopped watching TV and concentrated on getting this project done.

As of now, Saturday morning, we are planning on sanding the floors tomorrow. We are going to spend the day completing little touch up projects we need to do before the sand starts flying. I will get the sander this afternoon and we will be ready first thing in the morning.

We still have a lot of nails and staples to get out of the floor. Everytime I think I have gotten them all, I find more. When they carpeted up here, they didn't waste any expense on nails and staples. That carpet was NOT going to get away.

I am getting very excited for this to be over. I can't wait to see this floor with a fresh coat of stain and varnish. I think it will completely change the look of the whole room.

And then Susan won't like the color of the walls.

Painting Painting Painting

There's a good early morning shot of the landing with its new coats of paint. Susan still isn't quite happy with the color. She wanted something in a biege tone and this looks more yellow. I don't care one way or the other. The main thing is that it is complete...and we are not changing it. Now we have just a little touch up and then the sander comes out and we do that floor.

There I am on top of my $400.00 ladder with my $19.95 Wagner Power Pump Roller preparing to paint the walls with my $100.00 bucket of paint.

Not that I'm counting. No, wait! I am counting. That's why I'm writing this blog. To count and account of wazzup!

Painting Change Order

Well, I had the first coat up on about three quarters of the landing when Susan decided that she didn't like the color. It was too yellow. We bought the paint several months ago and before we started, Susan thought it was too light. So we trundled it back to "the Depot" and had them re-tint it.

Once she realized that it was now too yellow, we decided that we will buy a new bucket and start over. That's much cheaper than having her agonize over the color being wrong for the next several months until she decides to change it.

So, we went to work putting up Cincinnatian Hotel Dominica, which is a much lighter, mellower yellow, as you can see in the picture above.

Last night, I had to do some of the edging in the stairway. That requires getting waaaaay up high on the ladder in very precarious positions. I got all my edges painted when Susan realized that I had grabbed the wrong paint. She had poured a small container of the Way-Too-Yellow paint and I thought it was all the new paint.

I thought it was going down kind of dark but I just figured it would match up when it dried.

The Comedy of Errors continues.

A Friday in May

This entry is going to be a progressive kind of affair. I have taken the day off of work in order to accomplish some tasks around the house.

I have already gotten up and got in a two mile run around the park. In a moment, I shall shower and then begin the day in earnest.

We shall start with a series of pictures of the landing.

The picture at bottom is what we accomplished last night. It looks like it is going to need at least one other coat, but it looks pretty good.

Okay on to the next task.

5:32PM I managed to make three trips out to the dump today. While I am happy with the amount of crap I hauled away, I still have a ton of crap to remove. And I think a ton is an actual factual amount. I have a lot of clean up work yet to do with this little area at the back corner of our property. It seems the previous owner has used it to dump leaves and grass clippings for a loooooooong time. As a result, there is a very nice composted mulch back there that is littered with chestnuts from the yard. It's going to take me a while to get it all out of there.

Once again, I have bitten into a project that is a LOT more to chew than originally anticipated.

I think I'll go make some beer.

Another Task Crossed Off the List

The master bedroom ceiling is complete. It took us a total of about se7en hours to apply ten 18 foot panels of wall paper. Broken down, it was two hours on Tuesday, two hours on Thursday and about three hours yesterday. We had to do a little bit of minor repair work to a few seams, but for the most part, we are pleased with the results.

Now we have to get up some crown molding to hide the wavy edges and we are finished with the bedroom...except for the floor.

The only other major task to complete now is painting the walls in the landing.

and then the floors.

In other project developments, we started some work on the deck. We had a wheelchair ramp attached to the deck when we moved in. It has been great to have when it came to moving large, unweildy appliances and/or furnitures into the house.

But it takes up a three foot swath of lawn space in an already small backyard.

Half Way to Hell

Wallpapering a ceiling is no picnic. I think it would be the perfect torture treatment for Enemy Combatants. You put them in a room with a 13 foot ceiling, that's textured, and about 120 feet square. I think by the time they got the first panel up, they would want to start talking.

We achieved our goal of three panels in place last night but it was not fun. For some reason, we had a hell of a time getting the first panel lined up properly. By the time we got it up, my arms felt like lead weights.

But, we are half way across the room now and plan to finish up on Sunday.

In an unrelated developement, I shut down the furnace yesterday. Next I will drain the radiators and begin the process of removing the last two upstairs so they can be painted.

Purchases & Progress

This past Sunday, we bought a bookcase for the landing. We have been looking for a while and did not have much luck finding one that we liked enough to pay that much for. Susan was in a local Discount Mart and found a really nice one for $100.00. It was a Merchandise Return to Costco. It has some damage. There's a crack in the woodwork on the spacer between the two sides. We think we can fix it.


That remains to be seen.

Tuesday we started wall-papering the ceiling in the Master Bedroom. We managed to put up two panels of paper. Considering the amount of time it takes to get everything in place just so you can do the work, and then the Comedy of Errors in figuring out what you're doing on the first panel, completing two panels is great progress.
Tonight we are shooting for three panels. That's the halfway point.

STAND BACK! Something momentous is about to happen.

I am setting a goal!

The Landing and Bedroom project (which extends to the stairway project) will be completed by Wednesday, June 20th. That is five weeks and 6 days away.

The Word for the Day is atribilious. Ill-tempered, grumpy, melancholy.