Wabi Sabi Floor

Waiting for urethane to dry. This is the final gloss coat before we do the third coat in satin. A family friend suggested using gloss underneath whatever your final finish is because the gloss urethane hardens better.

Here's a view of the many imperfect perfections:

Huh? Get a job? What for? I'm tryin' to think...

We're right in the thick of it right now. Not much time to type. But this awesome knot hole had to be posted. It was full of white plaster which I scraped out. Then my dad cut a filler "knot" and sawed out a bit more so the piece could fit. Then he drilled through the whole floor. And we had to go to the basement to put a piece in underneath, which we could then fill to look like a floor. The hole is right on the threshold which makes me want to do something to it.

Enter my sister-in-law. Lynn! Come paint an eyeball on it! That would be so awesome!

More pics:
My mom yanking out a board:

The new/old floor, sanded once. Waiting for 2 more grits:

We should be done with the floor Sunday night. The waiting between sandings is a bitch.

A view from the top...

That's the washing machine in the basement as seen from the kitchen upstairs.

Floored.

Maybe you remember the gorgeous orange vinyl that was here? Since we were working on repairing the corner, I had to take out a bunch more yesterday. And then, because the hard part was done, i.e. the nails were already gone, I removed almost all of the rest. After the vinyl and the linoleum come out, a layer of black glue is left over. Which is painstakingly removed with water.

I pour a bunch of hot water on it and let it sit. Then scrape and wipe and scrub. It seems like it takes forever and then suddenly, you're done. Or I'm done. Because I did it all by myself. So there.

Now all that's left is some paint. Which will be sanded off. And that reddish color will come through and look amazing! Pretty good for a free floor. Unless elbow grease is now currency.

Floor Fail!

This is the southwestern corner of my kitchen/house. It sits under a flat roof that leaks. Still leaks. Our new roof did not include fixing the FLAT PART THAT LEAKS!! Which makes about no sense. (We have plans to fix it ourselves since it's only 300 sqft).

There are about 4 boards that are dry rotted. And my awesome neighbor happened to have 4 pieces of vintage tongue and groove fir. Which is amazing!

I still need to pull up a few more places to make sure it's mostly intact. I've only seen the kitchen nook area. But it's got an asbestos layer and I should wait until my kids are away. So,...never.

My dad is gonna come at the end of August to help me take out the wall, take up the floor and sand and finish it. Plus, new stove! It's gonna be a good time!

Fir Floor!

Mystery solved! My neighbor stopped by and confirmed what the internet said. It's a douglas fir subfloor. Let the linoleum removal begin!

Hey, Bearing

I really want to remove this wall in my kitchen. It's a little archway into the kitchen nook. If we get rid of it we can have continuous counter top running from the stove all the way into the nook. And we could get a bigger stove and more storage and bigger kitchen. But we needed to figure out if it's a load bearing wall. My instincts say no. We have two walls that run the length and width of the house and my money's on them. I think that guy is decorative. But the internets tell me that the only way I'll know for sure is to get a structural engineer to check it out.

Since I was already destroying the walls, all before 8am, I decided to see what our floor is made of. Looks like redwood? Is that a flooring material? I hope it's another treasure. I asked my neighbor over to tell me what to do...

It's called a bathroom floor, and here's what it's for...

Previously on Bathroom Nightmares: I discovered this beautiful floor under five layers of linoleum/vinyl. I felt like an archaeologist! Upon the advice of my neighbor, we used lacquer thinner to wipe up the nasty black stuff. And SURPRISE! A near perfect hex tile floor.There's one missing tile right next to the toilet, you can see it in the photo, but otherwise, it's completely intact!

There are some slight issues, but for an eighty three year old floor, she's lookin' pretty good. Some of the tiles had some chips in them before they black-stuffed it so the black stuff settled into the cracks. My amazing neighbor, happier than I was about my discovery, offered to come over and help me dig out the cracks.

There's still a ton to do. We took out that nasty vanity which will be replaced by a pedestal sink my boys bought me for mother's day.

I have to seal the baseboards I bought, gorgeous yellow pine, sand and prime that wall, and paint the wall Silver Spoon gray.

And since I only bleached the perimeter of the floor in preparation for the baseboards, I still have to bleach the rest of it. I used comet and a sanding sponge to get all the dirt/black haze up. You can see the edge of the tile is much whiter than the rest of the floor.

I'm pretty sure my lack of cable will benefit my life more than I thought. I would've never torn up my floor if The People's Court was on.

Kidschen

I thought this was the perfect introduction to my imperfect life. Big ideas and two kids don't really go together. Time seems to be the missing ingredient in my craft pie.

Also featured in this picture: the orange asbestos vinyl floor, the child safety lock and the tiled counter top that prevents me from rolling out any kind of dough.

Maybe now that you've seen the skeleton in my kitchen, I'll get after it and finish painting the darn thing.