First Coat of Varnish on the Floors

I haven't done a lot of updating, but that doesn't mean I haven't done a lot of working. It could be said I have been working too much to bother with the updating...
I have the floors nailed, leveled, sanded, filled, screened, cleaned and the first coat of varnish is applied.
The above three sentences represent about 300 hours of work. Pictures coming soon.

Tired and still nailing flooring.

Will it ever end??? Is my livingroom some sort of weird vortex of stretchiwalliness? Do the floors actually stretch longer as I nail more wood to them? Or is that my imagination? I think the former.

Today was amnesty day at the transfer station. That means, today was the one day per month the transfer station (dump, for all intents and purposes) lets people make deposits for free. We took three truckloads of the cat urine saturated and nailfilled old flooring. Also the soffits and some other mushroom nurseries from the removal of the asbestos a few weeks ago. We perfected our route to the transfer station and while we were there, we exchanged empathetic glances with a couple who were dumping truckloads of stuff that looked suspiciously similar to our own...

It snowed today, too. So, Vincent and I ducked in for a bite to eat at Wendys. Yeah, I know. We aren't Fast Food people, so this was strange, but expedient. It snowed! How cool is that? Yeah, about 32 degrees (snort, chortle).

I nailed wood past the cable. I nailed wood past the heat vent! I nailed wood past the disturbing hole in the subfloor! I nailed wood almost all the way past the hall entryway. But not quite. Vincent was a big help culling wood, cutting wood and sorting wood. He also cleaned a few things and the bathroom cabinet. He also removed some remaining old wood that we were waiting to remove until we had a little more flooring down for stabilization. This is a structural floor... He then pulled nails, vacuumed and Odo-banned the sub-floor. We left and went home, being sufficiently broken and hurting. :)

Busy, Busy Days

It was fantastic.
I got up and took the teen to school and took the trash to the transfer station and got rid of it and I was travelling back and I thought, HEY, places that sell brick are always closed when I am off of work, I'll stop in. So I stopped in to Knox Brick. Nice, nice folk. They showed me what they had and I hemmed and hawed. It was expensive and I didn;t really know how many I needed. I was just getting a feel for the prices, etc. The brick, you see, is to repair the tops of the chimneys (evident in the pictures). Turns out that old bricks are made a different size than new bricks. Also old bricks are solid and new bricks can be solid or hollow. Solids are more pricey. Bummer. So I started to go home and I saw another brick place. I don't know why the sudden and unplanned obsession with brick. This place looked closed, but they had a few pallets of brick and a couple people. They were going out of business. :( Too bad for them. Good for me - but I felt bad for them. They happened to have a very good match for my old brick in hollows and solids. They sold me a pallet (!) of hollows for $85 (that's 575 bricks) and GAVE me the 85 solids for free and I also bought four bags of morter for $5 each. I figure I can fix the chimneys and then instead of making the columns in front out of wood as originally planned, I can make them out of brick, too. I can make a brick mailbox. Maybe even a bread oven? Beyond that, I'm taking suggestions. ;)
OH - and they solved the transportation problem as well! They will deliver the pallet of brick for free on Monday! The place is Brickstone on Middlebrook Pike and they still have more brick if you are in Knoxville and need any.

I also looked into the metal roofing carried by 84 Lumber - it is manufactured by Metal Sales. I am looking at the "Classic Rib" in acrylic coated galvalume. It is exposed fastener. It is a project for another day, but I was curious on the pricing. It is $2.70 per linear foot (36" wide). Not including tax or delivery of course. Nor fasteners or closures, etc. I still don't know if this is the best price out there.

Vince and I ate out at Gondalier Restaurant. It was nice, though a lot of cheese. We are not used to that. But we needed our strength for...

The floor at the tiny bungalow!

We have since removed 90% of the livingroom floor. It needed it. We purchased a pallet of #3 common oak last weekend. I know we will have to cull out a lot, but with what is left over, we will floor the attic. Vincent and I got everything going - all set up and the tar paper down and the compressor set up and the flooring nailer adjusted, etc. Vincent and I then started nailing down the new floor, joining in with the old floor! He was a quick study. He's really smart! I like this age - 16 is a great age. Vincent has gotten to be really helpful. I'm proud of him. He and I managed to lay about 30 square feet of floor. It was a good feeling to finally leave the house in better shape than when we got there!

Now we hurt in places we didn't know we had.

Update on the other house... I have sealed the grout in the hall bathroom completely. All of it - with a tiny paintbrush... I also installed the backsplash and sidesplash. I also installed all new molding and shoe molding and the air vent. Then I caulked it all in. I cut the threshhold but still need to install it. That bathroom is looking like a million bucks! That's good since I decided to sell this house. ;) Yesterday I started mudding the drywall joints in the laundry room. I'll finish that tomorrow.

Closing, Aquisition of a fridge, tearing up of floor, horticulture

Closed on the house on Friday! We brought home the claw foot tub (good to get it out of my truck finally - boy that increases gas mileage!) and then went and bought a 1946 Westinghouse refrigerator for $30 - it is so cool.. But very small - up to my shoulder. More on that later - with pictures. I have a deep freezer, so we are up for having a "go" at using it for our primary fridge. And it fits the tiny fridge area in the kitchen. This weekend we took out the scratched laminate flooring to reveal... blue padding. Okok, to reveal... Luan plywood... Okok, under that, we took off one piece ever so gingerly and found the original hardwood floor. It is in moderately bad shape, but not rotten at all. Needs a few patches and of course, to be sanded and refinished. Dan and I have gotten SO GOOD at putting in hardwood, we are up for the challenge. And the old floor has so much more character and satisfies my inner purist (the only thing that will "do" actually). We will stain it dark dark dark, so the new patches will not show so much. I have patched hardwood before. It doesn't suck as much as putting in a whole floor. Just a few boards so far will have to be taken out.

I've ordered the floor jacks and also have the asbestos abatement company ordered too. Dan sprayed round-up on poison ivy. We found I have wild roses, a holly tree, an enormous shade honeysuckle, LOL, lovely wisteria, boxwoods, etc. Someone planted nice things here. They are just overgrown.