SYNRGYdesign

The actual sanding of the floors was not hard.  The sanding machine did most of the work.  We did not rent the drum sander but opted for the orbital sander instead.  It was not even an orbital sander as more like a big vibrating sander.  Going over the floors took a long time to do all three different grits.The hardest part was the edges.  We rented an edging sander and it was a lot more powerful than the big vibrating sander.  It was taking off more then we were anticipating.  We eventually opted to use our hand orbital.  It wasn’t as fast or strong but it got the job done.   

It’s taken a while to get to the point where we can start working on the floors.  The ceilings have taken a longer time then we had originally expected.  We rented a sander to test out how we would take the original varnish off the floors.  We are also concerned about a few areas that have some dark stains.After doing a lot of research on how to remove the stains it seems the consensus is try to bleach the stains so they will lighten up if they are very dark stains.  Since we have no idea what the stains are from and how long they have been there.  We believe that some of the stains are due to moisture being trapped and rusting the nails and staples from the carpet and wood.  We’ll find out tomorrow how well the stains will work.

We had already started the demolition of the interior side for the windows we are turning into doors.  K2 did a great job at taking down the plaster on  the inside…he was having so much fun he did not want to stop for lunch.  I had to help him a long and start pulling down some of the bigger pieces.Unfortunately on both windows we saw the diagonal bracing going under the windows.  Which meant that we have to brace it some how so that the bracing is not abandoned completely.  It is interesting how they used diagonal bracing for their shear instead of plywood.  The outside of the walls will come down later this week.  Hopefully there aren’t any more surprises when we take the outside down. 

Once we removed the terrazzo entry tiles and installed a substrate above the subfloor to prep for the tiles that are going to be installed, we realized that the tiles were still going to sit above the hardwood floors.  Instead of installing backer board on part of it we decided float some self leveling concrete.We had never used the stuff before but that’s about true for 75% of the stuff we are doing to this house so we figured why not try it.  We have specified it and seen it done in the field before but we still really didn’t know how it worked. The stuff is amazing.  It truly does level itself.  As soon as it started pouring out of the bucket onto the floor it was already finding the right places to go.  We did the best we could in directing it to the areas were we needed it the most.  Unfortunately we were installing a very thin layer, probably less then an 1/8 of an inch so it was very shallow.  We will just have to see how it works in the morning. 

One of the things that really attracted us to this house is the mud room/pantry.  It is basically an indoor laundry off the garage that also has a small half bath and a nice walk in pantry.  The idea of not having to run into a cold garage at 10 pm to get the laundry was very enticing to me.  Plus I liked the way it was off the kitchen and had access to the backyard and the garage.  The funny thing about the mud room when we bought it is that we do not think they used it as a laundry room because they had a refrigerator there.  We finally determined they could not bring the refrigerator into the kitchen because of the size of it and the size of the kitchen door openings.  But that still left us with the puzzle of where they did their laundry?  Like many things about the house I do not think we will ever find out why they did certain things but speculation is a lot more fun.We decided to build a platform for the laundry because we have the front loading washer and dryer.  We figured we could make it storage or something underneath and build a platform for a fraction of the cost they sell the pedestals for.  The platform idea was and is a good idea until I started tiling the floors.  I had to tile around the wood framing of the platform requiring more cuts and it was a lot harder to work around.  Tiling the pantry was not fun as I found out there isn’t any light in there which has now been added to the list of places that needs light fixtures installed.  While the tiling may not be perfect in certain places due to my frustration of having to cut the tile 2 to 3 times before I could get the measurement right, it is at least done and no one can tell where I messed up unless they crawl into the corners of the pantry or stick their heads all the way to the back of the platform under the laundry. 

There are literally thousands of articles on the Internet about how to sand floors, refinish floors, re-stain floors and repair floors.  Everyone is just slightly different yet surprisingly the same.I attempted to use our hand sander to try out some of the troublesome areas of the hardwood floor that have some stains.  Most of the flooring is in really good condition considering it’s age.  But there are some spots where it looks like the staples of the carpet rusted and left black spots in the hardwood floor and of course there are some big black stains mostly in the master bedroom that can only be assumed to be left from the same dog or cat that left the scratch marks on the walls.The experiment was good but also proved that hand sanding the edges with a palm sander as suggested in some articles should only be done by someone who has a lot of time and can take the repetitive movements of sanding the floor back and forth.  Hopefully the bigger floor sander is going to work a lot faster.  That experiment will happen in a few days. 

We decided to do the demolition that is required of the windows that we are replacing and making them doors instead.  The window contractor that is replacing all of our windows agreed to let us do the demo work so that we could save money and boy do we need to save some money now.We figured we would not need to do the actual removal of the windows until the weekend before they come to do the installation because we did not want a few big holes in the house but we needed to open it up on the inside so we can re-route the electrical that is under the window.I figured I’d let K2 do the work one afternoon while we were waiting for a contractor to come by and give us a quote.  The contractor was late and K2 was getting bored so I told him he could get his little hammer - it’s a real stubby hammer I got one for each of the kids - and let him have a go at it as long as he stayed with in the lines.  He did a great job - took out the plaster in record time.  He had amazing concentration and stayed in the area where I needed him to.  I think I’m going to let him do the other wall that needs to go as well.  I think we have a future demolition man on our hands.

Tiling of the floors is about 80% complete.  All of the tiles are cut in the hallway bathroom, mud room, pantry, and dining room.  The cut tiles are not set in with thinset yet but they are ready to be placed down.  The only place that needs more tiling is the master bath which is about 80% complete, only needing the cut tiles to be cut and put in.  The entry is the last remaining place that does not have any tiles at all yet. Any floor tile done with out knee pads is just torture.  I do not know what I would do with out it at this point.  In fact, it almost seems weird not to have them on. 

We are used to discovering things during demolition that may not have been planned for or need some sort of remediation.  It is very common in the type of jobs that we do that it is almost expected to find something that was put in a different location or built differently then the way plans say they should have been built.When we started work on the new house we were very interested in how it was built and we are impressed with the way it was built.  They did know how to make things last back then and it is not wonder the house is still in good condition even though it has been neglected for many years.When we decided to take the wood panelling out of the family room we discovered a diagonal brace probably used for sheer.  It probably does not do much and it certainly does not follow code today but since we were only replacing the finish we did not think to much of it.  We decided to mount the TV on that wall so we put some chases, plumbing pipe really, for the cables so they could be concealed in the walls. The diagonal bracing was accidentally hit and it basically disintegrated.  Termites had traveled down the wood and eaten it out from the inside.  The piece that was supposed to be a diagonal bracing support was basically paper.We decided instead of replacing the member we would just sheath the entire wall with half inch plywood making it a lot stronger and stiffer.  It works great and we now have the confidence that the wall will be strong enough to hold up the TV and anything else we may decide to put on it.  While it may have put us back half a day because we had to deal with this unforseen condition, it’s amazing that has really been the only unforseen issue we have had to deal with in a house that is almost half a century old. 

I am a big fan of trying to get the best deal around.  I am an Internet junkie and I constantly search for deals that can be found on the Internet.   Lately my search has been focused on getting stuff for the new house, mostly fixtures and materials and how to articles.  I have learned a lot from the Internet on how to smooth plaster ceilings and how to sand and refinish hardwood floors.I have gotten quite a few good deals over the past few years on the Internet. Gifts for the kids and other things that have peaked my interest.  I mentioned a few deals I was able to get for the new house.  The cooktop was not an Internet search find.  It was purely the luck of the draw walking into the store at the right time but I had spent hours researching cooktops on the Internet so I knew it was a good deal when we saw it.The latest good deal that I found was a kitchen faucet.   I spent many hours and weeks looking for a faucet on the Internet and in stores.  I almost bought one at a major chain store that is closing.  But it just was not right so I went back to the Internet and continued my search.  I happened upon a faucet that fit what we were looking for and it was a major brand so I knew it must be good.  I could not believe the price and took a chance and just ordered it.  I truly thought it would be rejected as a price mistake.  I looked the model after buying it and found out it was an $1100 faucet.  Once I saw that I knew it was a mistake and they probably would not honor it.I got a call the other day that the order was ready and I could come in and pick it up.  After loading up the kids, I drove to the store to pick up the order.  I was fully expecting they would tell me it was more and ask me to pay the full price.  I was ready to come up with a way to fight for my $43 faucet knowing perfectly well that I probably was wasting my time.  Let’s just say I was very nervous in the store the entire time it took for them to pull it up from the back room.  As soon as I paid for it I got in the car with the kids and drove home.  I could not wait to open it up.Little did I know that the faucet was indeed the one that I had ordered.  I had just gotten an $1100 faucet for $47 including tax.  I was shocked with the size of the faucet.  It is huge!  It truly is a commercial size faucet and it comes with a brace to hold it to the cabinet.  I did not realize from the picture on the Internet how big it was.  Of course I did not pay attention to the specs because I was too excited to get such a good deal.  It was a good deal but I guess I should have known better then to expect it to fit perfectly in the sink we bought.  It’s a great deal and I do not think I would pass it up if I saw it again knowing the size.