Ongoing renovation projects

Wow.  Last time I posted on my renovation projects I promised updates as I finished each step.  I had resolved to finish a good chunk of the office.  Just realized that I haven't posted a thing since then and that was in November.

Well I have a bit of an excuse.  I took Christmas off to go surfing and started working on another, non-house related project.  I did, however, get a few things done so here an  update.

Office.  

As I had planned, I sanded and refinished a good chunk of the floor.  I couldn't do the whole thing at once as I have my grandfather's roll top desk and it requires dis-assembly to move so I did what I could, moved the roll top over onto the finished section, and started working on the rest.

Ran into some snags with the corner repairs though.  When the corner wall was built, shortly after we moved in, the friends who helped used wood for the floorplate that was larger than the framing.  The floorplate, therefore, sticks out past the drywall and where I have to insert the new floorboards.  It wasn't a problem when there was carpet covering the floor, but in order to get this looking right I have to trim off the edge of the floorplate.  The problem is finding a saw that will cut into that edge.  I pulled the drywall off to give myself more room to work but this has been an ongoing frustration.

Moved into the hall while I try to figure out how to cut out that floorplate.  The corner (shown below) had been poorly patched.  The patchers were covering their work with carpet so it didn't really matter what it looked like.  I pulled out the pieces and installed new wood.  

One positive note is that I found wider flooring, although not thicker.  Those of you who followed the original back bedroom project know that the old flooring is wider than normal due to the age of the house.  This is not easy to find but Bellingham Millwork Supply carries tongue and groove pine in the old style widths.  Not as thick as the old stuff, but I laid down some tar-paper underneath to lift the pieces to the right height.

Next step is to start sanding the hallway and filling the gaps with wood filler in preparation for refinishing.  I have to hang a piece of plastic over the stairwell so that the sawdust doesn't go downstairs and cover everything in the house so that will be the next project, maybe after school tomorrow.

Let it snow!

Snow day.  No school.  Folks on the east coast are probably laughing at us, but we just don't have the resources to safely transport thousands of students around in even a few inches and it isn't worth buying them for the two or three days a year that there is an issue.

The negatives:

1. We'll have to make it up in June when we are all really ready to go home whereas right now we had a two week break starting this afternoon so we didn't need this and 
2. I take one day off of studies per year and that is the day before Christmas break, when I show the kids Christmas movies and ply them with cookies and hot spiced cider (Wassail).  Used to do math on this day and discovered it wasn't very effective so I substituted a lesson in holiday spirit and traditional Christmas classics (Rudoph, Jack Frost, Frosty are the order of the day)

Anyway, it's beautiful outside, I guess I will get some work done on my office floors.  I'll post an update later today but if you haven't seen the spare bedroom, check it out.

Wood floor project update

Wow.  Words fail me.  I have spent the past five month or so sanding* the 1909 vintage fir floors in the back bedroom.  Fifteen minutes at a time because I don't have the patience for that kind of task.  It didn't matter how long it took because I didn't need the space.  I have a big house** and I'm the only one in it right now***.  Cliff Notes version of the project I belt sanded, then hand sanded, then wood puttied to fill the cracks, then belt sanded, then palm sanded, then hand sanded, (all at 80 grit) then hand sanded one more time (quickly) at 100 grit to smooth out the surface for the sealer.  Here's what it looked like this morning after countless hours of sanding.

Today I applied the sealer to the sanded wood.  Wow.

The project isn't quite done as I still have to apply three coats of Polyurethane to protect it, with sanding in between each coat, but I think that can be done with a rotary disc sander (which I need to track down) so that should be pretty quick; then pick up trim for the edges and paint and install that.

Worth every minute spent in my opinion.

Next up, the center bedroom/office.

* I did paint the walls and the trim as well, so that should count in my favor on my pathetically slow project completion record.

**I will admit that I'm getting tired of having a lot of stuff and boxes stacked around the edges of my bedroom.

*** on a related but unrelated note, this guy is my cousin.  http://www.helpgordyfindlove.com/.  Maybe I'll post on this independently later.