Cleaning Day
Liz, working in the living room, stuffing rope insulation between the flooring and drywall.
Detail view of the work. This stuff has a strong odor (it smells like a Pirate’s locker room), but does dissipate. Eventually.
Posts Tagged "living room"
Working Downtown, Post-Work Errands, Returning to the Floors
With the workers coming back today, to address the various issues we found… Liz and I couldn’t stay home. So we did what we used to do in the old days – head downtown, to work onsite at our respective offices.
Flooring Issues
Some unfortunate news. When we got back yesterday and unloaded the car, after being away for a few weeks… we found our floors in a less than ideal state than we had hoped.
Last Night Before Flooring Install Begins
Big day, last day. Tomorrow is when the flooring guys arrive, and by the morning we need to have everything off the first and second floors.
So that means – everything is shoved into the basement. Or kitchen. Or bathroom. Or the small space between our walk-in closet and the bathroom, which we’ve colloquially referred to as “Harry Potter”.
Hearthstone Shopping, Date Night in Logan Square
The day we were visiting, we learned that the lift was waiting for some repairs – so not a lot of work was possible, since none of the slabs could be moved. Lucky for us, one of the owners joined our walkthrough and helped us with some suggestions and answered a lot of our questions.
The Light in the Living Room
We’re still a ways from transitioning from a construction site to an actual home, but for a brief moment… the light coming in made me forget about all the tools and sawdust and work awaiting us in the rest of the house. If just for a moment.
A Clear View
Came home after running errands to find that Liz had started to peel off the plastic panels that were on both sides of our new windows.
She and been working on the interior side, and I started on the exterior. She warned me that the act of removing the plastic caused a decent amount of static build-up (and she got a particularly nasty shock).
Living Room Windows, Install
Those are… some pretty big holes, in the side of our house.
A Day of Prep
A bit of Visqueen, blocking off the living room. We’ve put up and taken down so much Visqueen in this spot, we’re old hands at it.
Masonite, Revisited
After pulling up the layers of protective Builder’s Paper and Masonite recently… it was time to put more down again.
A Day of Errands, First Floor Floor Revealed
When we got back, both of us were pretty tired. But one of our goals for the day was to clear out the front living room – and to get the floor exposed.
We’re expecting to get a big shipment of trim delivered soon, and Liz is going to be doing a larger batch of shellac – and finalizing the colors/process. To do this, she needs more of the floor open/visible, so that she can see how things look in the daylight.
The Temp Living Room
The hope is to turn this into a sort of staging area, for when we get to the windows. So with some timing and luck, we’ll likely be transforming this room again in a few weeks. But for now, things look a bit more normal.
Cleaning the Living Room Fireplace
Liz applied a cleaner to the living room fireplace. It’s a coating that needs to set for a day or so, as it hardens and does its thing.
Cleaning the Mantel
Apparently, the color was due to the shellac used, and has required several rounds of cleaning to get to this point. I think Liz mentioned that she stripped this three times, and there was still shellac seeping up through the pours (and eventually she just had to stop).
Protecting the First Floor Floor
A huge point that both Bob and Nick made to us: tape the paper to the paper, not to the floor. The chemicals from the tape will seep into the wood, and when you go to remove the tape… you’ll remove some of the stain as well. And while it can be repaired, you’ll always be able to tell something happened.
Tape the paper to the paper, tape the Masonite to the Masonite. No tape to the floor, ever.