A Decided Lack of Enthusiasm

I confess it: I don't greatly enjoy filling the cracks in my 2nd floor hall floor with little wooden strips.

I don't like the fact that the gaps aren't uniformly parallel, forcing me to piece different widths end to end and hope it won't be too noticeable once the floor's refinished.

I don't like having to notch out around the roofing nails some previous owner saw fit to use to hammer in the tongues instead of proper square flooring nails. Inevitably, at least some of the filler strip cracks away.

I don't like taking the old floorboards-turned-shims down the basement to rip strips on the table saw. Never fails-- I always end up with some that are too wide to use.

I don't like the fact that no matter how many gaps I've filled in, I seem to have just as many yet to do. Or at least, the more I fill, the more I feel compelled to fill. The ones that seemed narrow enough to let alone look pretty wide after all.

On the other hand . . . it's good to have the old floorboards to match and rip.

And the table saw to rip them on.

And I'm grateful for the discovery-- which I made last Friday, oh, duh-- that the work goes a lot faster when I do it in the daylight, instead of trying to juggle my old shop light to see to clean out the gaps.

And I am making progress, really I am. By the time the local hardware store gets around to sharpening the blade on my grandfather's plane (they've only had it for the past week, ye gods), maybe all the filler strips will be done and dry.

Maybe, maybe, by the time I (finally) go in for surgery on the 22nd of this month, my hallway floor will actually be refinished.

I think I could muster some enthusiasm for that.