Timber Floor - Day Two

I put a small heater in the hallway overnight to help with any changing humidity while the first coat set and I am pleased to say that by this morning, those cloudy marks had all disappeared.  Yay!  Plus it was nowhere near as dark as I feared it would be when looking at it wet.

The surface felt quite rough, not to mention the little pawprints left behind, so I went over the whole thing again by hand with 240 grit paper.  That seemed to smooth it out nicely without removing any varnish.  So then a damp mop, dry cloth, then the second coat.

Second coat finished

I locked Molly in the lounge/kitchen this time so she couldn’t walk on it, but straight after I’d finished I came into the office and she appeared beside me!  On checking, she had managed to pull open the sliding door enough to get through and leave another nice little trail of pawprints over the surface.  Sigh.  She’s determined to leave her mark, it seems.

Incriminating Pawprints

Incriminating paws being cleaned of evidence

I’m really happy with it so far though (the pic doesn’t really do it justice).  It’s nowhere near professional standard and I can see little gouges where I struggled with the gluey bits, stains where no amount of hand sanding would cut it, and little marks where the belt sander bucked away from me, but I’ve decided that I love it.  Not sure if it’s a cop out, but it looks old, like lovely burned and gnarly pieces of jarrah.  I love the satin finish too – it has a really natural look, which is just what I was hoping for.
 

I'm not sure yet if three coats will be enough, but I hope so.  I'm applying the poly with a large brush straight out of the can so as not to waste one drop - one 4lt can cost $110!! - and I'm hoping it will be enough to do the kitchen and dining area as well.  (My shoulders just sighed and creaked with pain when I wrote that.)

1.5 hours to go, then the third coat.  :)

Timber Floor - Day One

I decided to try doing the timber floor in the hallway first.  It's a relatively small section and a naturally shadowy area of the house.  You can see my thinking?  If I completely mess it up, it would be controlled damage and I can just put the lino back over it.  :)

I didn't want to rent any drum sanders or whatnot, even though every recommendation says that that is the only way to do it.  I'm trying to keep the price down, plus didn't really want the inconvenience of hiring big heavy equipment and then be on a time limit to get it done.

So belt sander it is!

Newly uncovered floor

I started by lifting that sticky lino tape on the right.  Wow, really sticky.  And it left behind a black, gooey stain behind.  I got a lot of it off with methylated spirits and scrapers, but it was still all stained black.  

So I foolishly spent more time with the sander there, got most of the stain out, but managed to leave behind rippled gouges in the wood.

I'd been told that old jarrah is very hard, which makes it very difficult to sand, and I will now put the testimony of my experience behind that too.  I started with 40 grit paper and it barely made a dent.  So I had to put some force on the sander and spend about 4-5 min on each little section.  Then the same with 80 then 120 grit.

Finished sanding

I'm sure a professional would say I didn't cut deep enough, but without a drum sander, it was the best I could do with the jarrah.  I tried using my detail sander along the edges and corners, but it left really obvious scratch marks.  So I tried by hand, which was near impossible, but I managed to scuff them up a little.

After sanding came multiple vacuums, sweepings, moppings, hand wipings and a final go over with methylated spirits.

At some point in that floor's history, someone has sanded it with a heavy duty orbital sander which left big swirly gouges in it's wake.  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get rid of them all, but once I went over with the metho, it gave me an idea of how the finished product would look and I decided that it wasn't too obvious.

So next came the polyurethane.  After much indecision, I finally decided on Cabot's CFP Floor, Water Based in Satin.  I chose the water based over oil because it has a much faster drying time and doesn't smell.  And seeing as I am home all week, I reckoned that those things would be very important.

While applying the first coat, Molly came up next to me to look.  I thought she would be naturally repelled by it, but after a pause, she walked straight out onto it and then stood just out of reach for me to grab her, leaving a neat little trail of pawprints behind her.  Argh! 

I called her to come and she eventually came back off, leaving another little trail.  Thanks Miss M.  It was probably revenge because I took a mouse that she had caught away from her a few hours before.

First coat complete

 One of the other reasons I chose the water based polyurethane over anything oil based was because I had read that water based keeps the wood looking lighter, whereas anything oil will darken it quite a lot.  I really wanted to keep the jarrah looking as natural as possible - I think that light red is beautiful.  

After the first coat I was a bit disheartened by how much darker it looked, plus there were these weird white cloudy marks along the edges.  I hopped online, but the most I could guess at was that it might have been residual moisture in the wood.  The wood sucked up the first coat and I wondered if it had found some internal dampness - it had seemed perfectly dry to me, but it is the middle of winter.

I contacted a friend who had his floor done recently (professionally) and although he used an oil based finish, he said that white cloudy marks came and went and different stages, so not to worry.  Which made me feel a little more hopeful.

So with aching legs, arms and shoulders, I finally went to bed and slept like a log.

Room Transition

I have another week off and was planning to paint my bath, but then had an urge to start on the timber floors.  Once the bath is painted, I can't get it wet for three days and I figured that sanding the floors was going to be a messy job, one which I would feel a huge desire to use the shower. 

So floors next, then bath.

Towel hooks

The good news is that after a crappy morning with the plumbing, I managed to do my towel hooks.  I raided my backyard again and cut some branches from a fallen tree (yep, a fallen tree - it's a big backyard.)

I sanded down one side of each so that I'd have a smooth surface to attach to the wall.  Then hung them by drilling holes in the wall and the branches and using dowel pieces.  The dowel is tight in the wall, but I made the holes in the timber just a little bit bigger so that they are sturdy, but I can still remove them if I need to.

Fully loaded towel system

I feel it's a pretty happy exchange for the boring chrome towel rail that used to be in there.  :)

Plumbing Checkmate

I had a go at removing the old taps from my bath this morning.  Complete disaster!  When I took the handles off for painting the tiles, one was really stuck and after finally getting it off, the inside looked like it was all full of grout.

But it left behind a nut that I couldn't remove which prevented me from removing the housing and the spindle.  So I put a huge effort in this morning to remove the nut.  You can sort of see it in this closeup...

Anyway, the result was that the nut didn't move at all, but the whole spindle snapped off instead, nut still attached.

That didn't matter too much, because I needed to remove the whole spindle to put in the new taps, but after hacksawing a bit more off to get a clean edge and removing the housing, the spindle WOULD NOT BUDGE.

I went to Bunnings and got a proper shower socket for the job, but all I managed to do was repeatedly bend the socket out of shape.  And I was very worried that I might do more damage by trying to force it with a hammer or something.

So now, the spindle is fully turned on and can't be closed, which means I have to leave the mains water off until it's sorted.  Gah!  Which means, after managing to avoid plumbers for years, I've finally had to make the call.  :(  He can't come until tomorrow morning, so until then, no running water for me.

I have to say I'm very curious to see how he manages to remove them.

Shower Door Finale!

OMG!!  The shower door worked!!!!!

So I bought a sheet of clear polycarbonate corrugated roofing from Bunnings ($19) and used those 3 jarrah planks from my old outdoor table, put it altogether and hinged it to the wall with gate hinges.  And voila!

I can hardly believe that it worked.  I've attached it to the door frame, mainly because I didn't have a tile drill bit, so I really hope that holds it long term.  And I thought I might need something to stop it from swinging right into the shower, but it hangs wonderfully even (?!) and doesn't really need anything.

And, as you can see in the photo, the top corner is curving over a little, but I hope that is as much as it's going to be.  The polycarbonate is quite floppy, but I'm hoping the corrugations will help it hold its shape.

So that's it!  The door is done ... woot!!  Can't wait to take a shower.  :)

Cabinet Transformed

The sea of green and white in the bathroom was starting to feel a bit bland and I decided it needed a little bit of colour.

The white cabinet on the white tiles with white, white, white all around was getting me down, and I haven't even done the bath yet, so I decided to paint it.  Another Taubmans colour, this one was called "Quirky."  Aubergine, I'd say.  I thought it would lift up the green walls.

I'm pretty happy with it.  I was scared that the colour would be too light, but it's perfect. And the little silver handles finish it nicely, although I would still like to change the tapware.  I did manage to lift off some of my tile paint with painter's tape, but I'm hoping I can touch that up pretty easily.

I also salvaged a trough planter from the backyard, rust treated it and repainted it with a little old tin of Rustguard epoxy enamel that I found in my laundry.  I've been waiting all week for it to dry and it was still a little tacky, but I decided to go ahead and put it on the wall anyway.

I hope it might work to keep some towels in.  I had no idea, though, that epoxy enamel would take so long to dry!  Maybe it's because the paint was so old?  But still tacky after one week .. hmm .. I think it might be a few months before I can think about putting any towels in there!

And finally, here's Molly thinking that the bird on the branch might be worth a closer look...

Next step will be putting the shower door together (fingers crossed it works!) and then, finally, the bath.  :)

Wall Decal

My wall decal arrived yesterday and I was itching to put it up, but I had to work.  So last night, I watched lots of youtube videos about how to install decals, then this morning, got up at 5am because I just couldn't wait any longer! 

And here's the finished result...

 

I'm so happy with it!  It makes a boring wall so pretty.  I was going to install little hooks along the branch to hang towels on, but I don't think that's going to work.  And I don't really want to cover any of it with towels, now that I see it up. 

So I think it might be back to the towel rail.

Shower Door Stirrings

I've been having some radical ideas for a shower screen door.  Seeing as installling a glass one would be upward of $1000, I've been trying hard to think outside the box and, at last, I'm on to a plan.  It involves polycarbonate roof sheeting and an old broken outdoor table dug up out of my backyard.

I've started by salvaging 3 planks of jarrah from the remains of the table and here's what they look like fresh from the backyard.

 And here's Molly photo-bombing...

So let the sanding begin!  (Good practice for the floorboards.)

........

And here they are again - now cut, sanded and primed, ready for a nice high gloss white paint.

I had no idea that old jarrah would be so hard to sand!  Even 60 grit paper on an electric sander barely made a dent.  I think when it's time to do the floorboards, my right arm is going to grow to twice the size of my left.

Third ... and final ... coat

So after 2 coats of the Plastikote tile paint, and sailing very close to despair, I switched from a roller to a large wall paintbrush in the hope of creating a glossy finish.  And I think it worked! 

I can still see little streaks if I look closely and I suppose another coat would make it better, but I feel done with it.  I'll see how it lasts first before I make any more decisions, but for now, I'm happy with the tiles and it's on to the trim.

Second Coat

Oh boy.  I've just finished the second coat on the tiles, hoping it would finish them, but no chance.  When I first started on the first coat, I used a brush which left streaky marks behind.  So I switched to a foam roller, which didn't leave marks, but only put on a veeery thin coat of paint.

And now I've switched to a mohair roller for the second coat, which is my favorite so far. but hasn't been enough to cover the streaky brush marks or the uneveness of the foam roller.

So it looks like there will definitely be a third coat and (oh God), maybe a fourth.

The weather has been steady rain for the last few weeks and I have to admit the reno enthusiasm is flagging...