Kitchen work

I am tired but happy. The tile has been laid in both the living room and the kitchen. It looks so good! I have the same floor running the entire length of the house. I don't even mind putting back all the things that have been dragged into the living room while this and the south room are in process.

Jen and her boyfriend came over last night and moved the fridge for me. Jen cleaned up the old yukky vinyl behind the fridge, then I laid a cheaper tile to fill the holes that had been torn in the old vinyl. Since Dad glued the original vinyl down some ten or fifteen years ago, there is NO WAY I am going to pull it up. The second picture shows the "before".

I started laying tile about 9:00 Friday night and stopped when the second box of new tile was empty. By that time it was 4:30 AM. I decided to lay the last box of tile on Saturday. (I get involved in projects and lose track of time. What can I say?)

Saturday afternoon when I got back to the project I realized that I should make a commitment about the cupboards. For four years I have waffled between painting them or refinishing them. Paint won. I grabbed the can of paint left from doing the trim in the bathroom and started on the base cabinets. Tomorrow I'll go outside and paint doors and drawers.

I am not a dripless painter. I live my work. That's why I keep one old shirt just for painting. I have lost too much weight to wear the old painting pants, so I grabbed a pair of shorts that are getting too big and enjoyed slinging chocolate brown paint.

By the time I was done, the old floor looked like a Jackson Pollock painting; my hot pink tie-dyed shirt had a chocolate brown accent color; and my legs were wearing a polka dot look for the season. If you look closely at the picture of the painted cabinets, you can see my artistic additions to the old floor. I think the chocolate brown cabinets and white appliances will give the kitchen a classic look... especially with my new tile floor.

Living Room is Tiled!

It's done! And it looks so good. Good things are worth waiting for. :)

And what do I plan to do for an encore? The kitchen floor, of course. I am going to continue the tile into the kitchen, through the utility room to match the floor already in the bathroom.

I'm looking forward to this winter when I will sit in my favorite chair, watch a little TV and knit -- and admire my new floor. :)

(No knitting right now. I'm too busy doing other things.)

New Identities

This is a three bedroom house, but I can only sleep in room one at a time. The upshot is the two extra bedrooms take on new roles.

Now that Reyes is in Texas, the west bedroom has become the Library. I gave the bed he used to his sister and moved most of the bookcases into the room. I would like to add a comfortable chair that converts to a twin bed. That would allow the room to still be the spare bedroom. I am still looking for the chair I want.

My original idea was to move the roll-top desk into the Library as well. Unfortunately, the desk is too wide for the door. The desk now resides in the living room. I'm starting to like it there.

The south bedroom was going to be part of the kitchen expansion. That won't be happening now. Ah! But that means I can have a sewing room! I am using the Honduran mahogany table set that came from Mama Gladys. She and Papa Blanton had the set custom made from lumber he salvaged when he worked for Chiquita Bananas in Honduras in the 1940s. (That story is a full blog in itself!)

The large section that seats four will be the cutting table. The two expansion tables that butt against the bigger table will be used to hold the sewing machine and serger. I love the versatility of this table set. We have managed to get 12-16 people around it for big family dinners. Now it has an everyday use as well.

And yes, finishing the sheet rock in this room is on the agenda. One of the last things I'll do for the house is rent a sander and refinish floors in all three bedrooms.

I see more furniture refinishing in the future as well. I refinished this set when we inherited it after Mama G. died, but that was nearly 20 years ago. It's about time to do it again.

BACK AT IT!

The divorce is final; the dust has settled and I've gotten on with my life. This summer I've continued the never ending saga of weeding three houses worth of stuff to fit one small bungalow. No matter how much I throw away, there is still TOO MUCH STUFF! (Hm.. I got rid of one husband. Does that count for housecleaning??)

The good news is I have emptied the garage enough that both cars can now be parked inside at the same time! (what a concept.) :)

I had wanted to wait until it was time to install the hardwood floors before I put flooring in the living room. Since I can't predict when that will be, I've opted for Plan B. As you can tell from the first photo, our painted floor held up pretty well for three years, but the paint is wearing off. I could repaint it, but I want a more long-term solution. I chose self-stick tile.

I started putting down self-stick tile at the beginning of August. It is half finished now and looking really good. I need to make another trip to Home Depot for more tile, then the entire living room will be done! Done! Wow!!! I will be able to mop and not leave shreds of mop fibers caught to the particle board.

It's the little things that make me happy.

Nearly done

Look how it's coming along! All that is left to stripe is the area where the piano sits. That's been our walking corridor as we laid stripes and let paint dry.

When we were in Lawrence a couple of weeks ago Pat bought me a new rug for the center of the floor. I put it down for the first time last night. Of course, the cats say it works fine. They try to blend with the black parts.

I'll finish the red area today or tomorrow and have the floor complete by Thanksgiving.

Furball Lends a Paw

I am drawing the line. As you can see, Furball is helping. When Pat came home for lunch he brought me a second roll of blue tape. That really helps. After the lines are drawn, I can lay both lines at the same time.

In case I do this again, I'll document what I've learned. First-- knee pads are a must! That floor is HARD. I tried various methods of drawing the lines. The easiest one doesn't even require a pencil. Just a good yard stick and the tape.

I place the yard stick near the wall and use the tape to mark the 12" point. I'll next use the second roll of tape to mark the 13" point. I press the first six inches down securely on each piece of tape so they won't come loose when I tug on them later. Then I move the yard stick about 1/3 of the way down the floor and position the edge of the stick on the starting point of this "brick". Using the first roll of tape like a plumb line, I "snap" it straight to the 12" mark and secure it to the yard stick. I now have a straight line. I repeat for the second role of tape, securing at the 13" mark. Press the tape down and progress to the next section of floor.

Quick. Straight. And no pencil marks to paint over if there is a mistake.

Second Coat

The red brick color we're laying for the main coat is Dutch Boy Mesa Red. I was making the pizza dough for supper when Pat started the next coat. He used a small brush to paint the edges where the floor and walls meet, then came back with the roller for the rest of it.

He had about two roller widths painted when I heard, "Oh. That's really red."

"IRIS!" His voice came drifting into the kitchen. "Is this what you REALLY want?"

Grabbing a dish towel and wiping flour from my hands as I wove my way through the furniture stuffed any which way in the half of the room we aren't yet painting, I came to look. It was a wonderful brick red. Just what I wanted.

"Don't worry, Pat." It will tame down when we add the stripes."

"YOU get to paint the stripes." I was informed. Ah. Pat doesn't do brush work. :)

Primer coat

I must admit, I like the way Pat thinks. I had expected to paint these floors with a brush. He pulled out the paint roller and pan. Now, that's the way to go!

We are using Kilz for the primer because it hides stains so well.

Oh, yes, this is the way to paint a floor!
Not only did it go on quickly, I got to watch Pat do all the work. The Kilz is really thick, but dries amazingly fast. By the time he had finished the first third of the room, there were spots already drying.

I had the really hard task of sitting across the room in my rocker and going "You missed a spot!" Pat showed amazing restraint. He never tried to paint me or throw anything at me. :)

First Stage --Prep Work

It's begun! I was pulling staples when Pat said he'd do that if I'd unload the three bookcases. Gladly!

Each of us feels s/he got the better end of the bargain.

I will say, being a librarian shows. I have a lot of books. Pat has a mere pittance in comparison. :) His books take up a couple of shelves in the bookcase in his computer room. Mine are EVERYWHERE!!!! At the moment they are all over the daybed. Boy, was Something disgusted when he wanted to catch a quick nap this evening.

The Foundation of the Matter

I've waited a year, thinking we'd be more productive than we have been, but it doesn't look like we'll get to put down the hardwood floor I want any time soon. I'm resigned now that it may be two or three years before we do it. The issue at hand is the things that have to be done BEFORE we can do the floor.

Besides replacing the roof, (there is a leak in the flat roof over the utility and bathroom areas), we have more horsehair plaster to remove. That's dirty work that can ruin the finish on a nice floor. I'm too cheap to put down an interim floor just to see it ruined. I refuse to put down the good wood floors I want until the plaster is replaced. I have plans to replace the utility room and bathroom floors later, too. I have my eye on some click-together laminate that looks like stone. I've heard they don't stand up well in wet areas. This may not be a good idea for the bath and the back door. I wonder if they can be sealed? Hm... I have time to make that final decision.

We have four more rooms that may need the horsehair plaster removed. Kitchen. Utility. Bath. Northwest Bedroom. I can hope the bathroom and utility room have already been done when the folks reworked the bathroom, but I'm not holding my breath. It's all paneled. That was Dad's way of coping with crumbling plaster.

My old bedroom, the northwest room, has walls that are in good condition, even if they are still horsehair, but the ceiling is crumbling. Dad installed dropped ceilings to hide the problem. He did that for two reasons -- lower ceilings make a warmer house in the winter, and it was an easy fix. Dad wasn't worried about a "period look". He wanted something functional. He was also in his 70s when he was doing some of this work (with only Mom for help) so he wasn't going to create more work than they could handle. He only lowered the ceiling a foot, so that really isn't a big issue. I want to go back to the 9 ft. ceiling.

Before Robert and Pat stripped the plaster off the living room, the first thing they did was pull out the old green carpet. We've been living on the particleboard underlayment for the past year. I've even tried to wax it to make it look a little better, but that was useless. I'm really tired of living on particleboard. But I'm still too cheap to spring for an interim floor. Or am I?

Browsing at Sutherland's the other day, I found a flyer for floor and deck paint that showed it laid down in a red brick pattern. That looks nice! I know it's intended for a concrete floor, but the texture of the particleboard would just add realism to my bricks. We bought the paint and will be giving it a try. Even if it looks pretty amateurish, it will be better than raw particleboard for the next few years.

As you can see by the photo, there will be some prep work before we put down the color. I need to pull the nails that held the carpet down for starters. We will seal the floor with Kilz before putting on the color. In his later years Dad cut a trap door in the floor so he had access to the floor furnace. We have removed the furnace and will close off the trap door when we install the wood floor. In the meantime I plan to paint the black lines between the "tiles" to fall as so they hide the edges of the door.

1947 Lineoleum Floor

Spring has sprung! It's so nice to have the doors and windows open. It gives us an urge to get things done.

Pat has been busy this winter. He has reworked the living room walls, evening out some boo-boos and painting walls and ceiling. On nice days he has puttered in the 3-car garage, organizing it and enjoying his "man-space."

BUT NOW! IT'S TIME TO GET BACK ON THE PROJECT! We outdid ourselves today. (Am I sore!) We had been using Granny Mitchell's iron bed in our bedroom, but it was just too large. That wonderful foot rail that curves out to make a quilt holder takes up 18" more floor space than we had to spare. Today Pat wanted to install the new ceiling fan in our bedroom, so it was a great time to switch bed frames.

Pat took down the iron bed and pulled out the red cedar one that matches the rest of the bedroom set. It had been in storage for more than five years and was layered in cobwebs and dust. I grabbed the lemon oil and a rag and began dusting. Hey! There was wood under there!

All winter I have been muttering about the 1940s lineoleum on the bedroom floor. I have no idea how old that flooring truly is, but it looks like the stuff that was on the floor in grandma's house when I was a kid. It's real lineoleum, not vinyl.

"Do you really want to take that flooring up?" Pat asked as I was mopping it. "YES!" was my resounding cry. Hey! I guessed right. We rolled it until it cracked and broke, then took it out in pieces. Underneath was a layer of old newspapers. Kansas City Star, Feb. 2, 1947. The flooring was one year older than me!

We had fun with the newspaper. There was a politically incorrect ad for Aunt Jemima pancake mix, a Parade insert with an advertisement for "the really original postwar styling" of a Studebaker, and the funnies! Gasoline Alley. Little Orphan Annie. Dick Tracy. There were funnies there that I haven't seen since I was a kid; some I've only heard about. One called "Newsreel" had a story about Groundhog's Day. We weren't able to salvage much of the paper, but I kept the Studebaker add and a page of funnies. Pat would have liked to spend the afternoon just reading the paper, but we had things to do.

The bedroom is too small to rearrange. The furniture only fits in one way. But we have a wood floor now. The boards are stained but not varnished... and as ugly as Mom said they were. She despaired at the wood floors in this house. She said "I've seen better floors in barns." They are wide, poorly fitted, pine boards. Air leaks through them in the winter (remember me complaining about the cold in the computer room?).

Pat put insulation under the computer room and the bathroom. He plans to do this room soon. We will probably put floating laminate in this room and the computer room as well as the living room and kitchen. There really is nothing here worth salvaging.