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Valency
Feb 3, 2010

HALT HALT HALT HALT HALT

My daughters have been begging for their own rooms for the past couple of years, and my wife and I finally gave in. We're using this as an opportunity to rip out the carpet upstairs and on the stairs and put in new hardwood. I will be doing timelapse videos of most of the ordeal for all of your entertainment. I did a hardwood floor project back in 2013, a basic tongue in groove bamboo floor. I'm making it harder on myself this time by doing some more interesting parqueting this time.

The first step in all of this is to move my office into our back room. This has been the kids' playroom since we put down the bamboo in '13, and it needs some rehabilitation. We have a problem cat that pees outside of the litter box (one of the main reasons we ripped the carpet out in the back room to begin with), and the kids' mess in the back room didn't discourage him from targeting it. After going through all the toys and getting everything moved out of the back room, the bamboo was in pretty poor shape. There was lots of staining from cat piss, plus all of the crayon/marker/stickers/spills from the kids. Plus there were some mistakes I made that left some gaps between boards, and I figure I could do better now.

For reference, this is what the room looked like after we put in the bamboo:




First was the demo of the existing floor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aaR_s0STJo

Getting started was a complete pain in the rear end. I resorted to hitting the corner plank with my pry bar repeatedly until it splintered and I could pull it out. After that it was fairly easy to remove a run at a time. I was going to reuse the trim, but some of it was in bad shape, so I'm planning on doing new trim as well. After we got the wood removed, I replaced the dinky old fan with a new Haiku.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj-S8TKNXi4

Next was tearing out the tar paper and plastic vapor barrier. I didn't bother recording this since it was a pretty quick job.




There is a little bit of discoloration to the subfloor in the back corner, but the wood feels fine, so we're not worrying about replacing it. The tar paper soaked up most of the piss that got through the bamboo, and once we got that out the room smelled much better. We put down another few layers of Kilz primer to block any lingering odors though just in case. This worked remarkably well after the thorough soaking the area got when there was carpet, figured it wouldn't hurt to re-apply more this time around. We patched up some holes from wall mounted shelves, various dings and scrapes from the kids, and what not. I also put in an ethernet outlet.



Next up will be painting the patches and putting down the new underlayment. I'll be using a silicone underlayment instead of plastic and tar paper this time. Once that is in place, I'll start in on the actual flooring. I will be putting down a herringbone parquet this time in light oak, with a dark oak border to square it off and make it easy to finish flooring out to the walls. If I did my math right, I'll have 6 runs of herringbone, then a 2.25" dark oak border run, and two 3.25" light oak runs on all four sides. That should put me about 1/4" away from each of the walls without having to cut any boards lengthwise to fit.

At some point during this process we will also have a new back door installed. We put in the existing sliding glass door probably 12 years ago or so, and it was a crappy amateur job. We're getting a professionally installed door this time, probably French doors to the deck. I'll probably put in new door trim as well, since the existing stuff is pretty ratty. I will post pics once that is complete.

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Valency
Feb 3, 2010

HALT HALT HALT HALT HALT

Didn't make as much progress as I was hoping for this week. We got a new coat of paint up, and I put down the vapor barrier today. Hopefully I'll be able to dig into the flooring tomorrow. I realized today too that I don't have a chalk line, so yet another trip to home depot is in my future.

Valency
Feb 3, 2010

HALT HALT HALT HALT HALT

Success! I was able to start in on the flooring today. Ran to home depot and picked up a chalk line and a few other items I'd need. I found my center, set up the guide lines, and made my starting perpendicular framing line. I've been following the This Old House guide to herringbone flooring so far:

https://www.thisoldhouse.com/how-to/how-to-install-herringbone-floor

Going into this, I didn't look too hard to find equal length flooring, so each box is a mixed bag. The first box I ended up with a lot of wood that was too short for my project. The wood I had to start with was less than half the box. Luckily the rest have been much better. For the video I just recorded the start of the first two runs from that first box. I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening cutting down the rest. I have two boxes left still to cut down, but I figure I'll see how far I get with the four I cut today first.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZZPA42W3SI

It was not a very auspicious beginning, I had two misfires within the first three boards, I didn't whack the nailer with the mallet hard enough. I botched up the wood on the first misfire and had to toss the board. Luckily I was able to pull out the nail the second time. So far I haven't had any further issues. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to finish the initial runs and start in on the next one.

Jaded Burnout
Jul 10, 2004


:hmmyes:

Valency
Feb 3, 2010

HALT HALT HALT HALT HALT

I made good progress today. I finished up the first two runs, reversed the nailing blank, and got the third run in. I also backfilled the first two runs to the back wall. I had a couple more misfires I had to deal with, mainly because of the awkward angle right up against the wall. I also forgot to pay attention to the nails in the nailer, and put three planks down before I figured out I wasn't actually nailing anything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvmYdSXzPVg

My camera ran out of juice before I finished. Here was the end product for today.



Backfilling was neat, I had to put in splines to make new tongues. Probably going to need another box of splines for the framing planks at the end. The box was a lot longer than the splines actually were.



Ran into a little bit of trouble when I was backfilling as well. I guess my nailing blank isn't perfectly squared off, so the left plank was a little out of alignment. I have a couple of runs with some small gaps. I'll go back with some wood putty and finish after I'm done to fill those gaps.



I have enough cut planks for one more run. If I have time tomorrow I'll tackle it, then cut the rest of the wood on Wednesday. I may end up having to order another box of flooring too, as it's coming out to about one run per box after all of the planks that are too short. I want some longer planks for the border pieces, so we'll see what I'm left with after the next cut. Maybe my 5th box will all be long pieces I can get several planks out of :pray: .

Valency
Feb 3, 2010

HALT HALT HALT HALT HALT

I don't have time this evening to work on the flooring, so I figured I'd throw in a side project teaser.



My ethernet cabling is a goddamn mess.




So I'm going to do something about it.



Got a cheap keystone jack patch panel, mounting bracket, and a bunch of ethernet jacks, so I can clean up the wiring mess. I'll be mounting the patch panel on the wall, labeling which rooms the ports run to, and cutting some short cables to feed to the switch. I also finally got around to picking up some cable staples so I can route along the joists in the basement. You know, like 13 years later after running the cable originally.

I'm also upgrading my switch to PoE. I already have once PoE powered 8-port that I'm using with an injector, and when I move into the new office, I'll replace the small switch I currently have with another PoE powered one and be free of one more wall wart. I also have a few Raspberry Pis running that I'll pick up PoE hats for. Sometime in the next year I want to switch from my current router over to Unifi APs, and running those off of PoE will simplify the wiring tremendously. With the new switch I won't have a bank of injectors to deal with.

Valency
Feb 3, 2010

HALT HALT HALT HALT HALT

I finished up the main part of the flooring today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIifB_g60z8

I had to cut more planks between videos. This was my makeshift wood shop out on the deck.

(Redoing the deck is going to be another upcoming project this spring.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeREYzHehVg

I think I'm going to have to change my plans and take the herringbone all the way to the walls. The room is just a bit off square, and I think I was off by a couple of degrees when putting the first two runs in, so the framing would really stand out as rotated just a bit from the walls. I have about an inch difference from the left wall from the far side to the near side. The weather is turning so I had to bring everything back inside. This'll give me some time to measure out how badly off true I am and decide what the next steps are. I suspect finishing this up will be more effort than what I've done so far.

Additionally, the errors have added up, and especially on the right side runs I've got a few gaps. Still planning on picking up wood filler to clean it up. I have no idea what to expect from that process, but hopefully it'll look ok. (Can't be worse than gaps in the boards right?)

Valency
Feb 3, 2010

HALT HALT HALT HALT HALT

Oh, and I forgot to mention about the door. I did get the new door ordered. Going with prairie framed white french doors, something like this:



I was hoping to have out-swinging screens too, but that was way out of my price range. This one will at least have sliding screens that are easy to remove. That will be ready in 4 or 5 weeks, and it'll be professionally installed this time. Good riddance shittily installed sliding door, you will not be loving missed.

Valency
Feb 3, 2010

HALT HALT HALT HALT HALT

Fresh day, fresh perspective. I took the time to remeasure everything, and I think I'm still ok with the border plan. I'll go with 1" baseboard instead of 3/4" that I had before, and between that and the quarter round I'll be able to cover the gap everywhere in the room. The worst deviation is on the left side, and it's actually only around 1/2" to 3/4" between the front and the back. Over an 11' run I don't think it will be noticeable to anyone but me. I'm going to go ahead with the original plan, so today I finished filling out the field. No video today, just pics, since half of my time was measuring and experimenting with cuts.







With everything cleared out of the room I think it actually ended up pretty well squared. I took a few of the runs too far back in the back, but that won't be a problem when I'm cutting it down for the border. All in all, I'm very happy with how the herringbone field has turned out. There are only a few places that will need touch up with filler or need an edge sanded down a bit. That said, the next part will be the make or break, lopping off those edges.

To minimize the chance of loving up, I splurged on a new toy, ordered a track saw I can use to get a nice clean straight cut. That all should arrive on Tuesday, so I'll have a couple of days to relax a bit. Maybe I'll tackle the network wiring tomorrow, or just play Jedi Fallen Order.

The other small side task I took care of today was replacing our wired doorbell. I didn't bother with pics or anything since it was pretty boring. Our mechanical chime burnt out like a year ago, and I just got around to replacing it. I think I have a short in the exterior wire to the doorbell that ended up closing the circuit and burning out one of the solenoids. I got a cheap electronic one this time, my hope is that it'll handle an energized circuit better than the previous one did. From my futzing around with it today that theory held up -- it just rang over and over again until we killed the power. I made a couple of halfhearted attempts at pulling the wire, seeing if maybe I could fish some new cable back down to the basement, but it's stuck in there pretty well. In doing all that though, it seems like it's not shorting now, so we'll see. If it starts acting up again, I'll put more effort into replacing that wire. It runs behind the siding trim, and I suspect I'll have to get behind that somehow to replace it.

Valency
Feb 3, 2010

HALT HALT HALT HALT HALT

Holy poo poo, the track saw...

:perfect:



Took me a couple of tries to get it dialed into the correct depth, but now it's dialed in, and it made very short work of that edge. It was so worth splurging on over going through the hassle of building my own circular saw track. The track stays put surprisingly well given that I can't clamp it, and I got a nice clean edge all the way down.



This is the part of the project I've been dreading the most, and I'm very relieved with how easy that was. It was easy to line the track up with the previous cut, because the blade cuts directly against the splinter guard. I had to move the track once to cut this edge, and I suspect it'll take two moves to cut the long edge. But goddamn it was easy. Now that I've got a straight edge, I can lay out the border and get a feel for what it'll end up looking like.



I just grabbed some scrap baseboard and quarter round I had left over from the previous flooring job to get an idea of how it'll all fit together. Still thinking I'll move up to 1" thick baseboard, but I'll wait until I can see what the clearances are like on the other three walls. If I can pull off 3/4" that'll make mating it up with the kitchen baseboard and trim easier, but I don't think it'll quite cover the flooring on the back outside corner.

Tomorrow I'll cut the other three edges, put in the grooves, and glue in the rest of my splines. I expect I'll finish the floor on Friday, and maybe even get to the baseboards this weekend.

Jaded Burnout
Jul 10, 2004


Valency posted:

The track stays put surprisingly well given that I can't clamp it, and I got a nice clean edge all the way down.

Yeah, when I saw other people using them without clamping I thought it was crazy, but they do hold very well given a decent amount of surface contact. I still try to clamp where I can but the "stay out of the way" official Bosch clamps are £40 so gently caress that.

The only annoyance I have with mine is that when I'm cutting off the end of something there's not enough support under the track once the saw leaves the end enough to get to the middle of the blade. Annoying if I don't have any perfectly sized scraps. If that happens then the pressure lifts the track up a little, breaking the friction and allowing it to slide around.

Valency
Feb 3, 2010

HALT HALT HALT HALT HALT

I finished the cutting and grooving today! I feel like that was a huge effort despite it only taking like 4 hours. I am completely worn out and exhausted.

Jaded Burnout posted:

The only annoyance I have with mine is that when I'm cutting off the end of something there's not enough support under the track once the saw leaves the end enough to get to the middle of the blade. Annoying if I don't have any perfectly sized scraps. If that happens then the pressure lifts the track up a little, breaking the friction and allowing it to slide around.

The couple of scrap boards I had on the ends were helpful for exactly that reason. All in all I am very pleased with the track saw, can't wait to find other projects to use it on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwA804MsDko

The camera ran out of juice after the first router run. There wasn't much to that though -- it just took forever -- and afterwards I glued in the splines. It was dark outside by the time I finished up, so I'll get a picture tomorrow of the squared off herringbone. I also did end up with a couple of places of damage, so I'll work on fixing those along with the few gaps in the pattern.

The first bit of damage happened while sawing. One of the boards splintered a little bit. Not sure what caused it, the anti-splinter strip didn't have any damage or anything. It's small though and should be easy enough to fill, sand, and stain. I'm thinking I'll sand the edges just a little bit all the way around while I'm at it.


The second piece of damage happened during routing. The face nails on this small piece were way too close to the edge, and when the router bit into it it snapped off the corner. I glued it back in place, and I'll use the same filler approach to take care of this (assuming that works elsewhere). I'm lucky the nail didn't gently caress up my groove bit.


So, some things I've learned that I will keep in mind for the next two rooms:
  • Get some knee pads. Holy poo poo do my knees hurt right now.
  • Get a dust collector (or some kind of adapter for the shop vac). The hose I have doesn't attach, and all that dust sucked.
  • Use better masking tape. The router plate kept tearing and pulling up the tape, which made it more difficult to work with. Thankfully there wasn't any scuffing on the wood.
  • Find a better way to square that first cut. Somehow I have 3 90° corners and one ~95° corner :iiam:. I'll need to pick up a good protractor to measure out the exact angle, so I can cut one of the border boards to fit.

I know I had more items on that list, but I can't remember them now. Guess it wasn't that important of a lesson. I think I'm looking at finishing up the floor on Friday. I doubt I'll get any chance to work on it tomorrow with all the Thanksgiving prep we have to do. Then this weekend I can run out and pick up the molding and get that in, we can patch a couple of places in the walls I dinged up with the mallet, and do a coat of paint on the base and crown molding. I should've painted the crown before laying the floor, but I was antsy to get started. I'll have to add that to my list of things learned.

Jaded Burnout
Jul 10, 2004


Valency posted:

  • Use better masking tape. The router plate kept tearing and pulling up the tape, which made it more difficult to work with. Thankfully there wasn't any scuffing on the wood.
  • Find a better way to square that first cut. Somehow I have 3 90° corners and one ~95° corner :iiam:. I'll need to pick up a good protractor to measure out the exact angle, so I can cut one of the border boards to fit.

Tape:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00004Z4DI/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Squares:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Swanson-Tool-S0101-7-inch-Square/dp/B00002255O/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=speed+square&qid=1574920518&sr=8-5
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0002JT2DK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0001P05OA/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Valency
Feb 3, 2010

HALT HALT HALT HALT HALT

Hah thanks! Tape is purchased! I also picked up a reusable dust mask for next time.

As promised, here are pics of the squared off field:







I wasn't intending on working today, but after clearing the room and vacuuming up all the settled dust, I was like, "gee, I should at least see what the red border is going to look like." That led to nailing it down of course.







I started in on the light outer border too, but now I've run into the issue that even with the finishing nailer I can't get an angle on the nails into the tongue. I think my options are either to face nail or glue. I'm leaning towards gluing the first two outer border runs, and then securing a third ~1" wide run with face nails that will be hidden under the molding. I don't even think I have enough clearance to really hand nail those runs. Anyone have thoughts or suggestions?

Valency
Feb 3, 2010

HALT HALT HALT HALT HALT

It was a busy weekend, but I was able to finish laying the floor. I haven't had a chance to process the video yet, but here are the pics I took after the work was complete.











I set up the track saw on the deck to get accurate cuts for the edge pieces. It worked really well!



I ended up face nailing the last two runs of light border. Picked up a 16ga finishing nailer instead of continuing to use the 18ga one. I filled in about half of the holes with filler yesterday, and I'll try to finish that up tomorrow. The stain I picked up ended up being too light, so I'll have to find something a little bit darker. Glad I used a scrap board to test first. Might look into just getting a touch-up pen too, that might work better than full on stain. Hopefully though I'm on track to finish the baseboard trim this Friday, and start moving furniture in this weekend!

Thumposaurus
Jul 24, 2007

That looks fantastic!

Valency
Feb 3, 2010

HALT HALT HALT HALT HALT

Thanks! I'm off to home depot in a bit to pick up the baseboard. Hoping to wrap this up today and move furniture in tomorrow. I think it's just the moulding and trim paint, and a bit more floor patching left. I should probably put another coat of paint on the crown moulding too while I'm at it, but that might be the sacrificial lamb to the god of laziness.

Valency
Feb 3, 2010

HALT HALT HALT HALT HALT

Baseboard and quarter round is down! Now I'm just waiting on the filler and spackling to dry and I'll get started painting. I was really surprised at how square the floor ended up. Even with the variance between the front and back of the room, with the quarter round down it is pretty drat parallel to the boards. It looks like the left wall bows in by like an eighth/quarter of an inch in the middle of the room, everywhere else matches up well. I left the gap by the door, since it'll be replaced in a few weeks. Hopefully the new door lines up a bit better with the wall and the gap can be covered with 3/4" quarter round. Right now it's about an inch, and I'd need to put down another piece of wood to fill it. Seems silly to bother with that with everything potentially changing so soon.



Yesterday evening I installed a new exterior light fixture and motion detector. The old fixture stopped detecting motion, so I figured it'd be a good time to upgrade.

Before


After


They are hue exterior PAR38 bulbs, and the hue motion sensor. I'm having fun geeking out with automation now. I've always been leery about IoT crap, but it's only a matter of time before all my lights are either hue lights or in some way hooked up to my controller.

My kids are getting anxious about getting me out of my current office. That'll be the next huge effort over the this week. Currently it's a goddamn mess:

Jaded Burnout
Jul 10, 2004


Your Art is wonky.

Valency
Feb 3, 2010

HALT HALT HALT HALT HALT

Yeah, my cat stands up on her hind legs on the stereo and meows incessantly at that painting, all the while knocking it askew. I've given up trying to keep it straight. She doesn't do it with any of the other art in the house, :iiam:.

Valency
Feb 3, 2010

HALT HALT HALT HALT HALT

I finished painting last night. Put on three coats of bright white eggshell on the moulding. The room is just about done now! I have a couple more gaps to fill with wood filler. I ran out over the weekend, so it's another trip to home depot today. Maybe I'll get to start moving furniture in this evening!



I'm pleased with how it all turned out! I'll probably be all moved in within a week or so, kids will be in what is my office right now a week after that. Then I'll get to start tearing up carpet upstairs and see what I'm dealing with. I think I'm leaning towards tearing up whatever is under the carpet regardless (I want to do more parquet), but I'll wait to see before deciding.

Valency
Feb 3, 2010

HALT HALT HALT HALT HALT

I started the move process. Got the important poo poo moved: computer, stereo, guitars.



I've got a bookshelf to move in, and a small table. I'll probably need to pick up another bookshelf soon too. I've lost the closet I had in my prior room. Still, feels good to finally have this done and be moved in.

Jaded Burnout
Jul 10, 2004


Valency posted:

I started the move process. Got the important poo poo moved: computer, stereo, guitars.



I've got a bookshelf to move in, and a small table. I'll probably need to pick up another bookshelf soon too. I've lost the closet I had in my prior room. Still, feels good to finally have this done and be moved in.

Nice! It'll be a shame when you have to move it all out again to put down some nice 10c/sqft lino with a fake brick pattern

Valency
Feb 3, 2010

HALT HALT HALT HALT HALT

Jaded Burnout posted:

Nice! It'll be a shame when you have to move it all out again to put down some nice 10c/sqft lino with a fake brick pattern

I'm thinking something more along the lines of a nice dark floral print. Bonus points if it looks like carpet. I can glue that down right on top of the hardwood, it'll be a lot easier job.


And then I can carpet over that. History is a circle lol. When we took out the carpet originally we found lovely vinyl tiles underneath. Like the cheapest loving vinyl you could probably buy. I found some pics of the room before we did anything:




And what was under the carpet:


Really makes me wonder what the gently caress the previous owners were using the room for with a floor like that. It's off the kitchen, so maybe it was like a breakfast nook or something? This room is not originally part of the house, it's a small addition from something like 30 years ago I think, and I suspect that vinyl was the original floor.

Faustian Bargain
Apr 12, 2014


Are you going to put something under that rolling chair?

edit: oh now I see the little rubber stoppers.

Valency
Feb 3, 2010

HALT HALT HALT HALT HALT

Faustian Bargain posted:

Are you going to put something under that rolling chair?

edit: oh now I see the little rubber stoppers.

I think that's just the shadow, I don't have anything under it right now. I ordered some rollerblade style soft rubber wheels, specifically https://www.amazon.com/OPTTICO-Office-Caster-Wheels-Replacement/dp/B06XB6FYQX/. The mats all have crummy reviews it seems like, so fingers crossed these will work out.

Hung what little art I have this morning, and moved the bookshelf in over lunch. I think that's everything! I still may get another billy bookcase from Ikea, but I really don't know where I would put it. I guess if I moved the plant out, a bookshelf could go there. At this point though, I'll wait until the new exterior door is installed before doing anything else. I think I'll have to do a bit of reconfiguration when that gets here. For now at least, here's the final product:





Next up, clearing out the rest of my crap in the old office, painting the walls, and moving all the kids' furniture down. I'll also have to take a look at rehabilitating the floor in that room, it's pretty scuffed up from 10 years of office chairs. Hopefully a quick sand and a coat of poly will be all it needs. Going to take the kids to home depot this weekend and let them pick paint swatches for their rooms.

CommanderApaul
Aug 30, 2003

It's amazing their hands can support such awesome.

Valency posted:

I think that's just the shadow, I don't have anything under it right now. I ordered some rollerblade style soft rubber wheels, specifically https://www.amazon.com/OPTTICO-Office-Caster-Wheels-Replacement/dp/B06XB6FYQX/. The mats all have crummy reviews it seems like, so fingers crossed these will work out.

Hung what little art I have this morning, and moved the bookshelf in over lunch. I think that's everything! I still may get another billy bookcase from Ikea, but I really don't know where I would put it. I guess if I moved the plant out, a bookshelf could go there. At this point though, I'll wait until the new exterior door is installed before doing anything else. I think I'll have to do a bit of reconfiguration when that gets here. For now at least, here's the final product:





Next up, clearing out the rest of my crap in the old office, painting the walls, and moving all the kids' furniture down. I'll also have to take a look at rehabilitating the floor in that room, it's pretty scuffed up from 10 years of office chairs. Hopefully a quick sand and a coat of poly will be all it needs. Going to take the kids to home depot this weekend and let them pick paint swatches for their rooms.

I used those wheels on my chair to stop it from getting caught on the edge oft my area rug and they work great.

Valency
Feb 3, 2010

HALT HALT HALT HALT HALT

Got the networking cleaned up in the basement this morning.

From:


To:


Now on to cleaning all the rest of the crap out of my old office and getting ready for painting this weekend.

Jaded Burnout
Jul 10, 2004


Valency posted:

Got the networking cleaned up in the basement this morning.

From:


To:


Now on to cleaning all the rest of the crap out of my old office and getting ready for painting this weekend.

Nice. How's that patch panel being supported?

Valency
Feb 3, 2010

HALT HALT HALT HALT HALT

Jaded Burnout posted:

Nice. How's that patch panel being supported?

I installed a wall mount bracket with concrete screws: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07LB5VMKG/. It's pretty drat securely fastened with those.

Jaded Burnout
Jul 10, 2004


Good stuff

Valency
Feb 3, 2010

HALT HALT HALT HALT HALT

Ok, holiday break is over and it's time to get back to work. I cleared out my old office, which will become my oldest daughter's room once this whole project is over. We are going to paint it Half Sea Fog with an accent wall of Sycamore Grove, and we've got an ultra bright white for the trim.





The other problem in the room is the patch of floor where my office chair was. Here's a closer detail shot:



I bought a bunch of different solvents to try to figure out what the floor is finished with. I'm hoping it's something I can patch repair instead of having to sand the entire floor and refinish. Anyone with experience on this sort of thing have any suggestions or advice?

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

Schnitzel mit uns


It's either shellac (if it's an old house that hasn't had the floors refinished) with wax on top, just wax, or most likely polyurethane. Shellac comes up easily with denatured alchohol. Naphtha or paint thinner will get wax up, but poly is very difficult to strip chemically. You miiiiight be able to just sand the damaged area (gonna need to sand down below the grey wood anyway) and just refinish that area and hope the repair blends reasonably well. It probably won't be perfect, so be prepared to throw a rug or some furniture over the damage, or refinish the entire floor.

Valency
Feb 3, 2010

HALT HALT HALT HALT HALT

Wow, it took a while to move the kids downstairs, and this project kind of got stalled. We decided to leave the floor in the downstairs room as is for now, and worry about it at some point in the future. The room is gonna get more abuse anyway as a kids room. It took a good month of harping on the girls before they finally got all their crap boxed up and moved downstairs, and we were able to begin progress upstairs.

So here are the before pics of the grody carpet and trim, abused for years by a mentally damaged cat.


This is not the mentally damaged cat.


My wife got the carpet up, and we've got the original attic floorboard underneath.




It's in really bad condition, and we've started removing it.


These are boards directly nailed to the joists, so after we remove the boards we'll be installing a plywood subfloor. We hit another work stoppage too, there is some unknown blown insulation underneath the boards. It doesn't look like vermiculite, but I'm not taking any chances with what I assume is original 1930s loose fill insulation. I've sent a sample in for asbestos testing before we continue at all.

We found out some other fun stuff while we were at it too. Most of the upstairs walls are some sort of thin hardboard covered with plaster. It's pretty flimsy stuff, like what pegboards are made out of, but not perforated. Most of the walls in the house are lath and plaster, so we were kind of surprised at finding this crappy stuff upstairs. With the way the attic floor differs from the flooring in the eaves (the stuff in the eaves is wider), it seems like these are original rooms, not something added on by a later owner. We looked up the manufacturer of the floorboards, and they went out of business in 1938, so it's likely original stuff.

I purchased Brazilian cherry as the main wood, and walnut for border accents, and my plan for the upstairs rooms is to do a checkerboard pattern, kind of like this:


The other side project I'm tackling while we have easy access to the main floor ceilings is putting in some mesh wireless APs. I picked up a three pack of the nanoHD APs from unifi, and it'll be easier to run the wires now than trying to do it later. Unfortunately it's all stalled until we hear back from the testing company. Hopefully we'll get results mid-week, and hopefully they're negative so we can continue forward. I dunno how the gently caress we'll afford an abatement company if the test comes back positive :pray:.

Valency
Feb 3, 2010

HALT HALT HALT HALT HALT

Thank the gently caress christ, the insulation isn't contaminated with asbestos. Looks like we're just dealing with loose fill fiberglass. Work will continue this weekend!

Valency
Feb 3, 2010

HALT HALT HALT HALT HALT

We finished the floor demo today! We laid out the plywood just to keep cats from getting into the joists and insulation.



We've got a bit of a pain in the rear end, that the joists don't line up with the upstairs walls. The floorboard we cut away has about a 3 or 4 inch overhang from the joist, and the new sub floor would have a good foot or so overhang. We're planning on putting in 2x6 boards perpendicular to the joists every 2 ft using face mount joist hangers. I figure that should be sufficient to support the new sub floor over the runs where we have overhang.



I was only thinking about fitting it into the car when we bought the plywood, and had them cut it to 4'x4'. Now that I'm in the room, I actually want more like 4'x6'. I'll have to order some more so I can custom cut the north side to fit. Not really a big deal, we'll use the 4'x4' in the next room I'm sure.

I also purchased a dewalt dust extractor to go along with the track saw, and I gotta say, that's like 5 billion times better than running it without. There was only very minimal dust underneath the cut, and none blown into the room. It also beat the gently caress out of using the sawzall, which is what we started with.

The other decision we made was to redo the walls and ceilings, get rid of the plastered fiberboard, and hang drywall. We'll be able to put in better insulation as well while we're at it. We're gonna be tryhards and replace the door to the eaves with a recessed bookshelf door. Tomorrow we're going to start demo of the walls!

Valency fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Apr 4, 2020

Valency
Feb 3, 2010

HALT HALT HALT HALT HALT

The thread title is out of date, this has become more than just a flooring adventure. Wall demo is going well, and now we're talking about bumping the room out a little bit further.



I've ordered a bunch of the additional hardware and lumber we'll need for putting in the subfloor, so for now knocking out the walls is about all we can do.

Jaded Burnout
Jul 10, 2004


Exciting! Do you need the thread title changed?

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Valency
Feb 3, 2010

HALT HALT HALT HALT HALT

Hah, nah, it's still a flooring adventure, just one that has expanded into a subflooring, framing, and drywalling adventure too. I've been lazy about updating, but we've been working every weekend this month. Most of our time has been finishing the demolition.







Today we actually installed the first two subfloor panels! We're finally installing new stuff, not just demoing old stuff.





The majority of my effort today though was putting in the cross braces between the joists by the wall to support the floor. I think I mentioned before that the walls don't line up with the joists, so we were left with a good foot of overhang for the subfloor panels. I ordered a bunch of joist hangers for 2x6 boards, and it worked well.



Here's the final set up for the supports over the stair bump out (which was the biggest pain in the rear end to work around).



I also installed the first ceiling access point while we had everything open. I used the wrong kind of masking tape (it was way too sticky, should've just gone with the purple delicate painters tape instead) while jigsawing out the hole, and it peeled a bit of paint off. We'll go back and get that sanded and touched up at some point.



I'll put in the rest next weekend. and hopefully get the rest of the subfloor installed. Then the plan is to finish demoing the ceilings, put in the new framing to bump out both sides, and then start in on the drywall. We also bit the bullet and signed on to replace our roof. Most of the roof is around 25 years old IIRC, and it's showing signs of age. More concerning is the roof over the little bump out that my office is in. It's a very shallow pitch, almost flat, and the 10 year stuff we had installed when we bought the house is now 12 years old and is starting to leak. We're getting that replaced with TPO membrane which should be good for ~25 years. The new roof will be a big weight off our minds, and then we can start worrying about how to pay for a new AC/Furnace.

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