As part of our errands a few days ago, Liz stocked up on several items from Home Depot to try her hand at removing rust via electrolysis. We’ve got several items to clean, and one of the bigger ones are the cast iron vent covers from the first floor.
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).
We were fortunate to have Bob over today, who stayed late into the evening to finish the humidifier install to our downstairs furnace. With the cold weather kicking in and the air getting dryer, there was a concern that the new first floor flooring would suffer for it.
Liz was excited to receive this in the mail, today. For all her searching (she’s been on the lookuut for years for hardware that matches our house)… she’d never encountered window pulls (aka sash lifts) before.
I was upstairs working on work work today (catching up a bit from the week), but she spent her time in the basement doing a ton of stuff: clearing away debris, reorganizing, and also building these bad boys. Which involved some angled cuts and a bit of table saw work.
Continued work tonight in the dining room. With the ceiling and walls patched with mud, sanded, and wiped clean (all by hand)… the actual priming of the walls was going a lot easier.
It may be hard to prove, but the room actually looks smoother and cleaner, after we worked on it. Things are definitely in a better state for primer, after us taking the time to wipe down the ceiling and walls.
What’s striking is what the wood looks like along the side (where she hasn’t gotten to apply the oil yet). Most of this is going to soak in over time, but it’s still a very surprising contrast.
After a solid, several few weeks of just non-stop work… the last thing I’d personally want to do is house work. But I’m not Liz, who suited up tonight and spent time in the basement… continuing her pocket door cleanup work.
Put in time today in the dining room, also trying to get paper and Masonite down to protect our new floor.
Part of what I did was bring up the table saw, and to do some custom cuts of Masonite. I’m overlapping boards in a few places, but ultimately I’d like to just have a single, smooth surface.
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.
It’s a challenge with these images, as we only end up coming downstairs well into the evening (we need to wait around 90+ minutes after Nick’s done to walk on the floor). We don’t really get to see the floor much in daylight, as it’s dark when we actually can walk around.
Nick and Milton came by today, to have another pass at the floor. After their normal, full day… they stopped by around 4PM to put down the first layer of varnish.
Similar to the stain, once the varnish is down… we need to stay off of the floor for a set amount of time (about an hour to an hour and a half, until it dries).
We’re being really careful to watch gingerly along the floor. And I can’t help but feel like every step I take is going to somehow irreparably damage all the work that’s been done. It’s like the floor is some kind of delicate, beautiful lava, and I need to just stay off it at all costs.
Honestly? I was not expecting such a stark change, with the slight gaps between boards seemingly removed, and a continuity that stretched from room to room.