Last coat of lacquer
So how did I get to the last coat of lacquer, this is really tough to remember, I should have kept notes on what I’d done since my last post but time has been tight but any free time I’ve had has been spent on the house.
My previous weekend and this recent weekend have been a bit spent with my little girl, this weekend and Saturday was spent at her 6th birthday party and the following day involved a trip to see her grandparents, so whoosh there goes a weekend. The weekend before was her actual birthday, so there went a day and a night. Not that I’m complaining I just feel I should explain my lack of posts. The only part of all this I didn’t enjoy was judging musical statues (my little girl’s least favourite part of her party was when her Daddy caught her moving and eliminated her from the game… I really should have cheated, I’ll never be forgiven) and holding a piñata and being socked by little kids with a stick.
Work opportunities were few, some were nights after getting back from putting my daughter to bed, while other opportunities were found in the odd couple of nights after work. This meant I had a couple of hours to work up to and around midnight, so all wasn’t a complete loss, in fact it all worked out well for lacquering and then retiring to bed while the job dried.
I actually did make a lot of progress despite having so little time.
In the last post I’d just managed to sand down the floor with the main floor sander, I only had the edging to do, followed by filling, primer and lacquer. So not much to do at all 🙂
Still jobs grow to fill the time available and the edge sanding was preceded by lengthy room tidying, just getting everything out and the thick of the sawdust up took hours. Not only was the floor covered in sawdust but there was sawdust on the walls, sawdust in every cranny of the radiators, sawdust on the dado rail and even sawdust on the coving. The coving was brushed first, the dado next, the radiators needed a rag threaded through them, and then a broom around all the walls, it took ages and this was before I started on the floor.
Then the edge sanding…. phew what a task that turned out to be, every couple of feet involved about an hour of work with the ½ sheet sander then the detail sander. I missed walking up and down with the drum sander, focusing on the floor with podcasts lightly distracting me as I worked. Now don’t get me wrong the floor sanding was a super-chore, the first floor sanding involved chewing up the more tenacious stains and this took time and effort. Once the gnarly bits were done you had to throw in the extra grit runs and it all in all this took over a day. This initial sanding run however was not as bad as the edging, being on your knees with a pair of sanders slowing working laboriously around the room wasn’t any fun. The worst bit of all was doing an hour’s work and then looking at the rest of the perimeter that needed doing and realising just how long it was going to take. Still all I could do was knuckle down, it didn’t take as long as the main floor sanding but it wasn’t a pleasant job and not one that I’d like to repeat.
Once done though it still involved more edge sanding with a finer grit and then a real thorough brush and then a hoover while banging in nail heads I’d missed on previous runs. Labour intensive or what?
It was a while back but once I’d done the edging I remember it being very late in the day – on the Saturday before last – despite being absolutely bushed I knew I must get the filling done in order that it could dry for the day I would be taking my little girl out for the day. So with heavy eyelids I mixed up some Lecol 7500 with the finest sawdust I’d collected while floor sanding and brushed it into a paste. Then it was another couple of hours work moving methodically around the room filling in holes where I’d popped nails out of the boards and where there were noticeable gaps between the boards.
My filling regimen this time was to achieve a polished but rustic finish, so rather than filling every gap between each board I was to leave it gappy. I’d been really impressed by the filler in the bedroom but it had been too good, the finish was marvellous but I preferred the idea of a contemporary rustic farmhouse in the kitchen. On filling I’d filled in some of the wider gaps but on reflection I’d un-filled most of these gaps and although some spaces were still left filled it all worked really well. I had however aimed to fill all of the holes where I’d removed the floorboard nails, so this took the main part of the time, the smaller holes that hid the screw heads were not intentionally filled. The result was exactly what I’d wanted.
Once the filling was complete I left the whole job to settle and dry and then once this was done it was sanding time again. A light brush over with an 80 grit paper to remove the proud filler and then some more meticulous sweeping and vacuuming.
The floor needed a couple more rounds of filling before I was satisfied and once this was done it was more sweeping and hoovering and then a good going over with the primer.
The primer was the Bona Prime product and this went on a treat, I dug out my roller tray, my floor roller, a detail roller and a paint brush and worked around the edge with the detail roller while using the paintbrush to get into those awkward spots. The main floor roller quickly despatched the main volume of the floor. Once done I closed the door and headed to bed.
The next night I had available and it was on with the first coat of lacquer, for this I employed the Bona Mega Extra Matt, not cheap but – I’m reliably informed – just about the best lacquer a boy can get. This went on beautifully, the result was the finish I would have wished to have had after my final coat, it was so subtle with a very light sheen and it was excellent. It was a shame I had to put on a second coat and although the second coat wasn’t as perfect as the first it was still brilliant.
Anyway one night I did manage to put together some text on what techniques to employ while applying the last coat of lacquer and as this was written on the same day I did the work… well I thought it would be best to just to insert it into here verbatim:
- Consider the room to be a clean room and once you’re in there you don’t venture out until you’re finished. Get all your gear prepped, get it into the room, take off your shoes and don’t leave until the entire floor is finished.
- Wear a hat to keep hairs in place
- You may have thought that previous attempts to keep the floor clean may have been successful, well that’s until you get down on your hands and knees and feel the floor. Chances are that it will have tiny imperfections, sharp edges made by teeny bits of grit, hardly visible to the eye but you’ll easily feel them with your fingertips.
- This time you have to get them all out, first get all the gear you need into the room.
- Dust anything that may be dusty, my Bona Mega bottle was really dusty and it needed a good going over with a duster.
- Use fresh rollers, unwrap them outside the room and bring them in immediately once they’re unwrapped.
- Clean your tray, rinse it out and then dry it with a towel, once dry you may need to get rid of any grit in the bottom of it with a duster.
- Do not wear shoes into the room, only socks.
- Sand the floor with a detail sander, do it all, don’t crack at this stage you may think it’s a lot of work but it shouldn’t take too long. Your fingertips here are your best tools, sand and lightly brush the surface to check for any bits of grit or gnarly bits. I used a 180 grit sheet – well I used about three on this floor – just before I put on the final coat.
- The sander may leave a few white scratched bits, they should disappear on the next coat.
- Don’t go too close to the edge on this coat, there be sea monsters lurking there, or rather there be the gritty wall and if you catch it you’re likely to encounter more grit in your finish. I left out the paintbrush circuit in this varnish as this is what I’d used on previous coats to get right into the corners.
- After I’d sanded I hand brushed – yes hand brushed – the entire floor into a dustpan, it didn’t take long and it was really surprising how little grit there was, even though it had felt like the surface of the moon before I sanded. Every coat I believe gets rid of a little more grit, I reckon four coats and if you followed this procedure you’d be scrupulously clean.
- On the photos you may notice my dust covered hearth, I could have dusted this beforehand but I thought it might put lots of dust in the air that would settle during my finishing. I just avoided it on my rounds with the roller.
- When you finished with something put it outside of the room, don’t step outside just hand it out.
- Keep the room warm, remember it should be over 13 degrees Celsius for the entire process
- Wear gloves, the varnish is a pest to get off ones fingers, disposable ones are best.
- After I’d hand brushed I went over the floor with a vacuum cleaner.
- I even tack clothed bits of the floor.
- Retire to bed while it dries.
- Consider this final coat to be like a soufflé, once you’ve put it in the oven don’t be tempted to open the door to look at it. Just leave it for four hours and only then venture back. Remember every time you open the door a little bit of dust will leak into the room.
- Before you commit to a new coat try out a bit first, you may find that the finish is too garish or shiny with the new coat and you may need to tone it down a bit with something a bit more matt or glossy.
Anyway back to the present, the floor was finished and dry and I now had to get the skirting and panelling back on. As I mentioned in previous posts the panelling was in pretty bad shape and would need work to get it back ready for the wall and it needed to be done quickly.
As panelling is only seen from one side this allowed me to take a few shortcuts, there was one bit of wood that needed to be replaced completely and a bit of missing beading. The wood was an awkward size but I managed to find a suitable bit after much searching in B&Q, the beading was tough too but B&Q were up to the job and I found a good match.
A quick visit to the wood workshop where I work resulted in the wood being cut to perfect size, it was a tricky little angle that needed to be sawn from one end to the other, a hand saw would have been close but our machine shop and technician resulted in a brilliantly perfect piece of timber.
Armed with the cut wood, beading, scrap wood, some metal L-brackets and some screws I set about the panels. Most were in pretty good shape and after trimming off their bottom rails (this needed to be done as the floor level was now raised and they sat on the floor rather than behind it) they were excellent. Others were a bit untidy but were made better by a quick bottom rail trim but one in particular needed some extensive shoring-up from the back side.
Once I was happy that they were stable I painted on a coat of wood hardener to the flaky bits, I let this set for the day and then I applied some clear Creosote wood preserver to the backs of all the panels. While they dried I sorted out the skirting for the living area of the family room (the kitchen area would have cabinets on the walls so skirting would be applied once these was fitted). The skirting fell into place and then with the careful application of some hammer-in fittings they were secured permanently.
I then cut some aluminium insulation to size and fitted it to the bay window, the panels now dry I put them into place and struggled for ages to fit the last panel. The problem here was that the joints didn’t lend themselves to the simple fitting the last panel, no matter what order you fitted them the last panel was always impossible to fit, the joints were the wrong way around. A quick rest though and I had a solution, I fitted both of the side panels on either side of the bay window, two on each side, then I put the main panel above and slid it into the gap. I say slid but it was far tougher than that, the fit was really neat and it took a fair few whacks with a hammer (wooden batten to spare damage between hammer and job) to get it into place. In fact it was such a struggle two bits of beading leapt off and it was on the cusp of falling into bits before it fell into its final resting place.
It was a struggle but in the end it was nearly perfect… the beading would need fitting and there was a teeny gap that needed filling but that was it. A set of screws into the woodwork and it would be finished.
Well apart from the filling, the sanding and the paint that is 🙂
I should be in the room by the next weekend – my wonderful sis’ and bro-in-law are coming up to visit and will be shaking a leg or four for two days this coming weekend, we’ll move mountains together.