Finishing the floor
Crikey it’s been a long time since I last wrote an entry, it’s difficult to put it all down but basically I managed to get that floor sorted. Not wishing to spoil the end but I took a week off on holiday, fully intending to completely finish the bedrooms and in that week all I managed to do was screw up the floor in the big bedroom.
Casting my mind back in time I took to my holidays by spending too much cash on my first day off. I remember now that I needed to get some timber and some bits from Ikea and what have should have been a couple of hundred quid turned into some much more than I’d initially planned, I think around £600 more than I’d originally calculated.
Just before that first weekend I’d just managed to get together some curtain poles from B&Q, this had been quite an exercise as the poles in question weren’t in stock in some branches and the branches where they were in stock, well in them they were in short supply. I’d also made mistakes in purchasing the wrong sizes too, I’d tried to get really long ones to cover a double rail setup, but this had turned out to be a mistake. Basically in the end I’d had to visit four branches before I had my final set of rails.
These poles though were as good value for money as I could find, ploughing around on the internet double rail setups (an inner net and an outside curtain) were extremely expensive. The B&Q black nickel poles looked rather attractive and well made, I opted for a 28mm one for the curtain rail and a 19mm one for the inner net rail. I’d made the mistake in the past of using black curtain rails and they’d looked awful, but these are different and when mixed with the other room fixtures I expected – and was proved correct – that they’d look marvellous. The rail sets came with finials, curtain rings and hangers but I’d not be using the hangers as they were for single rail setups and I intended on installing a double rail set. In the end without the hangers I was looking at £45 per window for three windows, not bad but not cheap too.
Again searching around double hangers were unbelievably expensive, I found in the end that the best option was the Ikea Betydlig wall/ceiling hangers (£1.50 each), really well made (most offered such a narrow footprint that they’d come down with a slight tug), the ability to hold different size rails by adjusting the cup liner size and most importantly the ability to hold two rails with the addition of a 50p Betydlig curtain rod holder. This meant that a single window would now cost an additional £6 for three hangers and three additional holders… which is really cheap.
Anyway the timber purchase on the first day of my holiday amounted to wood to accommodate my family room conversion. Wood that would be used upon lifting the floorboards to provide a base for the insulation I’d be placing between the joists on the ground floor and spruce that would be used as a subfloor for the reclaimed pitch pine I’d be lifting in the family room. There was also a smattering of timber to support the spruce as I intended on fitting the spruce between the joists as I had in the upstairs bedroom. Along with some chipboard to semi-finish the attic floor out this little number came to a staggering £600+. Erkkkkkk, considering I already in massive debt this was not what I wanted to fork out.
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To make matters worse I now needed some curtains and my £51 per window budget was now to career off into the stratosphere with some Ikea purchases. Well not exactly stratospheric but up there in the doubling of my £51 spent per window budget regions of space.
Fabric is tricky, never skimp I was once told, so I didn’t, three sets of curtains and three sets of nets later and I was somewhat worse off. Actually I did buy four initially but returned one set later when I realised I’d not need them.
A lampshade, some odds and sods and an Ikea meal later and I headed home, my bank balance in tatters.
Shopping till dropping over and now it was a week of work, or it would have been apart from some Daddy daughter days and a night out on a curry bender in Barnard Castle with a day to recover afterwards.
OK then, sooo Saturday spending, Sunday with my beautiful little girl and it was up-and-at-em on Monday.
First thing on the Monday morning and it was one of those two steps forward and three steps back. Basically the morning was spent with a belt sander with the intention of ironing out those rough edges. I’d had some good results with my belt sander in the past and I got a shock upon standing back to admire my work that the sander had left some rather nasty ripples on my wonderfully sanded flooring. This was not good, my floor sander had gone back to the hire shop, the belt sander was not working as intended and all I had left was a detail sander and sheet sander with no sand paper. Bahhh humbug, another trip to Screwfix sprinkled with a visit to National tyres for some tyre puncture repairs and lunch in my scruffs in a far too posh coffee shop, another set of expenses and some wasted hours later and I was home with a set of assorted 1/3 sheet sanding papers.
So an afternoon of sanding looked on the cards until I realised my sheet sander was a ½ sheet sander. So back to Screwfix, exchange done, back in ¾ of an hour and more time wasted. Not a good start to a day and even worse when I had to spend the entire day with the sheet sander ironing out the ripples the belt sander had caused.
Tuesday and it was to be a momentous affair with my folks, my sister and my bro-in-law visiting to lend a hand and shake a leg.
I love these days, generally when they all turn out mob-handed we get lots done between us and this day was no exception.
My wood delivery had turned up that morning at 7:30 (wrong chipboard that had to go back) and now after having had to unload the delivery manually – overhead cables caused the crane to be unfeasible – there was now a significant pile of wood in the garden. The trick now was to clean out the room that was to be the family room, then to load that room with wood in such a fashion that it would allow me to uproot half of the floor, insulate underneath, apply a subfloor and re-board the room a half a room at a time.
This was no easy task, basically the room was full at one end with ephemera and a rather large couch and the added bonus of having no place to store anything.
Anyway nothing stops my family when they get going and within two shakes of a lamb’s tail, chairs were being taken into the attic, clothes rails were being dusted down and moved, mirrors were being relocated and couches upended and stood up in the front hall. One huge exercise later and the room was ready for wood, ten minutes later and the new family room had a large pile of timber ready for some woodworking.
I really cannot tell you what went on that day but gardens were tidied, strimmers were strimming, hedge trimmers were trimming, things were going on everywhere but eventually everything was hoovered or polished to within an inch of their lives.
The crowing accomplishment of the day was the building of my double bed, this had been first thwarted by missing screws and oddments but due to the persistence of my Mum these were found in the last place anyone would have normally looked and my double bed build was back on the cards. A bit of adapting later and the bed was up, waheee, this meant that after months and months of living in a tiny less-than-single bed I now had the luxury of a double bed and an almost complete bedroom to house it in.
I slept very well that night, my Sis’ my bro-in-law and my Mum and Dad having been wonderfully helpful.
Wednesday was a no DIY day, a haircut, a visit to the folks, a bit of booze and bacon shopping and it was a night out with my matey Catherine in Barnard Castle. Catherine later enjoying my double bed while I slummed it in my old less than single sofa bed.
Thursday and urghhh a morning on the couch nursing a hangover – I’m not built for this anymore, worth every moment though – followed by an afternoon with my daughter at her Nan’s
So now it was Friday and the varnish was ready to go, a week where I’d hoped to get so much done, all the bedrooms finished and the week was almost over and I’d not got one coat of varnish on the floor.
The floor was looking brilliant it was a shame to spoil it with a coat of lacquer but it had to be done, the surface was hard but it really wouldn’t stand a moment of wear and tear, it needed to be finished off and at £110 for the varnish and primer it was about to finish me too.
The primer was applied with a small foam roller at the edges and a larger roller I’d acquired from a trip to B&Q earlier in the week. It all went on pretty smoothly. The next coat was applied some hours later and following advice I resisted the urge to give the finished article a list sanding, the first coat having bristled up the floorboards and hence no longer necessitating a sand. It all looked great, I’d opted for the Bona line of varnish, the Bona Prime primer and the Bona Mega Satin varnish, I didn’t want shiny I just wanted a light lustre.
Waiting a day and admiring my work at every opportunity I let the surface dry out and went at it with the next coat of varnish.
An hour or so later and the floor was dry and it was ruined. What had been a lovely sheen with the slight blush of the pine finish glowing through was now a loud brash highly reflective pine in a stripped down yellow, with a rather artificial plastic finish to it. I hated it, what had once been subtle and lovely was no unabashed pine 70’s bathroom cladding.
An email to Bona and another to that expert on all things floor stripping and finishing, Toby at Newell Woodworks and I had a reply from Toby. Toby was more than helpful and in my dilemma suggested that I lightly hand sand the floor with a 180 grit paper and then apply a Bona Mega Extra Matt finish. So with an aching credit card and another £70 a short wait and I was the proud owner of a 5 litre bottle of Bona Mega Extra Matt.
I must admit that despite Toby’s expertise I was a bit sceptical that this could save the day, despite this scepticism I was still in awe of his ability and I mustered my last farthings and elbow grease and took to sanding my floor. Hand sanding isn’t the easiest thing to do but it’s very much in the “wax on, wax off” vein of things and it can be quite meditative if done well and in the balance of things it added to my sanding CV that was now bursting with floor, orbital, detail and sheet sanding… just call me Dusty.
Some sanding later and I was now out of my week off and back into my evening after work routine.
Things had taken time and what what with my usual household daily duties the week had come and gone. I had supplemented my DIY and chores and spent an afternoon with the strimmer and hedge trimmer finishing off the garden. This had been provoked by my house becoming the scruffiest on the street, what had once been a rather grand house with finely manicured gardens had become an overgrown mess. My concentration on interior work having eclipsed my attention to outside gardening, my wakeup call had been a mailman leaving a note pleading me to cut the trellis as he was finding it difficult to access my post-box that nestles in my back door. Not only were hedges and trellises trimmed, lawns strimmed but I also took to weeding out weeds that were poking through paving and clearing out large piles of debris that had gathered in corners. I finished the day with ten bin liners full of gardening waste and a much tidier, though not perfect, garden that no longer let down the street, well not too much anyway.
A half day too had come and gone moving furniture, being on one’s own meant that a wardrobe and chest of drawers move would be a major undertaking. No simple to-me to-you-ing it meant stripping out drawers, emptying wardrobes and wresting them into place, then repeating the stripping and emptying in reverse. A half a day and little to show for that too.
Getting back to the varnishing, the floor was now sanded and I had followed Toby’s advice in keeping the surfaces meticulously clean. I’d allowed the dust to settle, I’d brushed, I’d hoovered, I’d brushed and hoovered again, I even went over the entire surface with tack cloths wearing clean socks. I now realised that any imperfection (after having spent a day sanding them out) would make for a rather sad floor, I expect to be cloned in the future from a hair I left in one bit.
New rollers and a new bucket for my varnish as I didn’t trust the one I’d used… perhaps the surface had interacted with the varnish causing the glowing floor and resplendent in my varnish socks I rolled out a fresh layer of varnish.
Four hours later and it was dry.
And it was………………… fantastic.
What had been an awful 70’s throwback pine floor was now a fabulous delicate fresh pine with a subtle hint of colour and a light reflective sheen, it had worked and somehow a floor that I had thought was beyond rescuing had been saved by an extra layer of Extra Matt and a little light rubbing.
Toby was right, I never doubted him for a moment J
Back to work now though, a week gone and still I’ve not completed a single room.
I have subsequently managed to order some blinds for a little window I had planned on curtaining in the smaller bedroom, I have now got a double curtain rail up but no curtains yet, I did manage a trip back to Ikea to return some curtains and pick up some of their smashing curtain hooks I had forgotten on my previous trip – the plastic ones just won’t do. I have ordered some spray to finish off a small plague of carpet moths (I do not like doing in the little buggers, but I can’t afford for them to spread) that are eating into my horrible bathroom carpet. Note I will NOT be carpeting the bathroom this is from the previous occupation.
Anyway the small picture says I only got a floor varnished, the bigger picture is a bit more interesting.
Oh and I need a new dustpan and brush, my trusty old set were done for when I left them on top of my stove after cleaning it out prior to setting it alight. The stove wasn’t damaged but my old trusty pan and brush were finished, a little red puddle of plastic with a Mohican of bristles. Poor old thing.