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I thought we were done remodeling the inside of the house... somehow, Ro roped me into another project. We already remodeled the bedroom a bit already, just a coat of paint, new windowsill, new window, moved the bathroom door, new closet door, new closet organizer, new doors, installed a ceiling fan. So what could be next? A hardwood floor and a new textured ceiling! We are using Bruce pre-finished tongue & groove 3/4" red oak strip. The finish is a dark tone and is called "Gunstock."
As usual, click on a thumbnail to open a larger photo, use your back button to return.
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Day 1: The Tear-out (05.21.05) |
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The requisite "before" shot. |
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The room is empty. |
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The nasty "cottage cheese" ceiling came off easily. |
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The ceiling on the floor. |
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The ceiling stripped of its cottage cheese. |
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Our temporary bedroom & materials storage area. |
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The ceiling is sanded and primed. Little holes in the walls are patched & sanded. |
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Management. |
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So far, Ro has done most of the work. Because... I.
Don't. Paint. We emptied out the furniture. Then removed all the wall
plates and trim. Ro scraped the ceiling, sanded, spackled, washed,
vacuumed and mopped. We are camped out in the living room until this |
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The walls are painstakingly masked-off. Or else I would whinge about getting texturing glup where it doesn't belong. |
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Here, safety minded Ro indicated the exit route with a prominently placed arrow, at eye-level. It's time to fire up the splatter gun. |
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This is a shot comparing the new and old texture. The texturing process is fairly easy with the spray gun, the hard part is enduring the acrid fumes from the texturing compound. |
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The carpet is gone. Aside from some water stains and some spackle, the original floor is still in pretty good shape... whatta relief! |
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The first sheet of new plywood is down. |
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Traditional 2005 penny. |
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The plan is to get to the point where we can install the hardwood next weekend. Ro pulled out the old carpet and padding, removed the tack strips, loose nails and staples. The spackle in the floor perplexes me. It's OK though, a layer of 3/8" plywood is going to cover the existing sub-floor. That will give us a smooth working surface and brings the level up to the existing hallway floor. So over the next week it will be: trim the door jambs, install the plywood, seal the air leaks with expanding foam, remove some linoleum, install the thresholds, de-squeakify the floor and other little fiddly-fart annoyances. ... oh yeah, Ro has to paint... I. Don't. Paint. The color Ro chose for this room is called "Chopped Chives." I say "it's green." (in a Scottish accent... extra points for those who get the Star Trek reference.) I hope to pick up the floor nailer from the rental place on Friday. Yes there is a special gun just for nailing floors and it's great. I have my own staple gun, framing nailer, finish nailer and brad gun. But I don't have my own floor nailer because they cost more than the combined price of all my other nailers. |
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I put in two more sheets of plywood today. That's all for me. Hey, it's a workday and a Monday. | ||
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Here is one of the empty spots from yesterday, filled-in. This one covers the 2005 penny shown a couple of days ago. |
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Here another empty spot from yesterday, filled-in. |
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The plywood is all in. Ro is rarin' ready to paint, see the can in the foreground? |
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Here's the first coat of paint... it's grrrreen! |
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Today's project was to extend the existing wood floor into the threshold. I needed to under-cut the door frame and trim to make it all fit. |
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All done - nice! |
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Management pitched-in to "help" Ro put on the coats of paint. Here, he is "assisting" with the masking. |
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Ro finished the first coat on the ceiling and second coat in a few other places. |
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The bathroom threshold. It's about 6 inches to the left of its original position due to a previous project. This is where the new wood floor will start. |
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I just wanted to make special note of the nice undercuts I made. This is tedious, repetitive, blistering work. And I didn't cut into the molding in the bathroom! |
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The second coat of paint on the ceiling. |
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Here's the red oak door against the new color... |
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Here's the floorpile. Ro removed the masking tape, and also brought home a little cooler. It says; "There's big and then there's Bubba." |
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Here's the walnut windowsill against the new color. |
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I was planning on getting the first few rows of floor in today... didn't work out that way. It took about three hours to remove the linoleum from the threshold and undercut the trim and doorjamb so that was enough for me. Ro gave the room a second coat of paint and touched up a few places. Then we schlepped the cartons of flooring from the living room (staging area /tool shed/flop room) into the bedroom. The paint color is beginning to grow on me. I call it "tropical posh" or "hemp green." |
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The beginning... |
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Here's one day's work on the floor. Install time worked out to six sq. ft. per hour. At this rate it will take about eighteen more hours to finish the floor. |
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The transition from the existing natural oak floor to the darker stained floor in the bedroom. |
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Ro is sorting our woodpile into lengths and pulling out the twisties, bowies and twangers. |
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We hooked up the sconces and ceiling fan. We still need the work light cuz IT'S DARK IN THERE! |
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Management on the worksite! Look busy! |
| We got a late start on the floor today but still managed to get a lot done. There was a slight hiccup when I went to rent the floor nailer. The rental place didn't have any at their Santa Clara store. Fortunately, the Milpitas store had a few in stock. So after a roundabout drive around the South Bay Area, we got started around 2:30 in the afternoon. Hopefully, tomorrow, we will hit our stride and beat the six sq. ft. per hour rate. A lot of the slowness could be attributed to the condition that three rows had to be set by hand before we could use the floor nailer. Either that or old-age... I prefer the former. | |||
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We've made quite a bit of progress. |
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The brass heat register looks really sharp. |
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We got in the groove today and did at least twice as much floor as yesterday. Ro was taking care of layout and setting planks, while I did the cutting and stapling. We make a good team. |
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This is as far as the floor nailer would take us. It served us well. |
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The view as you enter the room. |
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The view from the bathroom. |
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The floor nailer jammed and misfired a few times. Here's some interesting metalwork. |
| Even though the morning started out on a downbeat - on the first hit, the nailer jammed so bad it needed to be dismantled - We still beat the rental deadline by a good two hours. Ro spent last night laying out several rows and sorting more wood. We ended up with nearly one full box of leftovers as planned. We put another light in the room to make it "brighter." Hah! I am convinced that this paint is "Black-Hole-In-A-Can." I don't care how many lumens or wattage are pumped into this room, it will be absorbed. It will still be dark. I like it. As the "holiday" weekend nears its end, I am calling it a day. | |||
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It's Tuesday. I'm tired and I'm sore. I didn't do anything today. I am not going to do anything tonight either. |
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Today I procured 48 feet of 3/8" base molding from Pinecone Lumber Company. Then I brought it home and pondered whether to stain it tonight or not... I'll go... I'll go... I'll go... Gottdammit! I'll go. Gah, I'm tired! OK, I stained the trim with some Minwax Walnut stain mixed with some wood conditioner to lighten it up. It looks like a match. Now it must dry. | ||
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This is where we left off... The conundrum: What to do with the closet door track. |
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They way it should look, with the track on top of the floor. |
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I agonized over what to do about the closet door track. If I butt the floor up to it, it would look bobo. If I run the floor under it, the doors may no longer fit. Well, after a couple of measurements I decided the doors would still fit, but it would be very tight getting them in there. So I removed the doors and set to work. After setting a few planks and re-installing the track, it was time to see if I could get the doors back in. It was touch and go there for a minute, but with the use of a shim, sheet-metal, Zen and some well thought-out streams of expletives, I was able to coerce the doors into place. Did you know that glass can bend quite a bit? Anyway, they slide smoothly and look fine. |
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| Today I finished off the last few pieces of the floor. Then I puttied all the nail holes with some so called "color-matched" putty from the same manufacturer as the floor. This "color-matched" putty also matches no less than fourteen other colors in addition to their "Gunstock" color that we have. Needless to say; the "color-match" is less than optimal at best. Now I can't decide if I want to finish the molding with gloss, semi-gloss or satin varnish. I'll wait for Ro to get home, she can decide. I'll put on the final coat of varnish once the finish is determined. Then it can dry overnight. | |||
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Here's one view of the base molding installed. |
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Here's another view of the base molding. |
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All done view one. |
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All done view two. |
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With the installation of the molding done, the construction phase was officially complete at 9:04 AM. Now it's just a matter of moving stuff out, moving stuff in and hanging stuff, and doo-dad-doily work. Ro just finished installing the wall-plates and I dusted the TV and window shades. 6:03 PM, We're done! We moved all the furniture back and Ro has been cleaning and washing all day. I've been putting tools and supplies away and cleaning up the workshop. It will be so nice to flop out tonight in our new cozy refuge. I have one or more projects to do in order to call this truly complete: a headboard and nightstands, or a combined unit of some sort. |
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We finally got the right bedspread back from the dry-cleaners. It was "promised" to be ready 5 days ago. | ||
This page was last updated Saturday, 23. May 2009 02:35:24 PM -0500