Disaster, Tragedy, and Woe

Well, more or less.

First a photo of what makes it a tragedy.

. . . Well, good grief, looks like I neglected to take a picture of how my 1st floor hallway floor looked once all the painting and touchup was done.  Guess I was too heartily sick of the effort to  think of it.  Suffice it to say that by the afternoon of the 21st I finished getting the second coat of the brown color (Lowe's Porch & Floor Latex Satin, tinted to match Pratt & Lambert's "Brandywine" tone) onto the 2x6 fake tile shapes on the floor of my 1st floor stairhall. The yellow/buff attempt was covered, and the too-bright "Hot Pepper" tone on the 6x6s was supplanted by the more-appropriate "Barn Red."

It looked pretty good.  It looked even better that night when I peeled off the striping tape and revealed the "Slate Gray" ersatz joints.

(Got a cute squeeze ball out of it.)

Only thing is, in some very obvious places the brown didn't wholly cover the yellow. In fact, the yellow had seeped under the tape in several places, so I couldn't expect the brown to cover it.  To be frank, the red-orange and the blue had seeped here and there too, despite my best efforts to burnish the masking tape down, but they weren't so glaringly noticeable as the yellow.  The daylight of  Tuesday morning revealed that the yellow was showing a lot more than I'd thought.  The brown "tiles" had a nice build up in comparison to the "joints" which gave a nice, realistic effect.  But you could often see the yellow under the brown along the edge when the light hit it the right way, especially towards the front room end where there were two coats of the lighter color.

Thus ensued three, yea, four gruelling days of creeping along on my hands and knees with gray paint on a fine detail brush trying to cover all that yellow, trying to get a hair or two of the brush just to catch that thin but maddeningly visible edge peeking out along my nice gray joint, repeatedly thinking I'd got it all and what I still saw was just highlights and shine, and repeatedly having to go back and try again once the sunlight or the illumination from the ceiling fixture fell upon it.  In all, picking up spilled salt with one's eyelashes would have been preferable.

 By Friday the 25th the yellow wasn't completely covered, but the effect was good enough considering normal lighting conditions.  So I began applying my clear sealer topcoat.  Since I was using floor paint, you'd think four coats total over primer would be enough to stand up to normal use.  But I've used fhe same product in the basement, and after a year or two it does begin to wear.  I've put too much work into this paint job not to give it some protection.  Due to its non-yellowing properties (I don't want my blue squares turning green) and going on the advice of the paint counter guy at Home Depot and following the example of Jayne over at The Kelly House, I went with the Minwax Polycrylic finish.  I wanted a bit of texture to it; maybe I should say, a bit more texture added to what I'd already rolled and stippled on, so that night I applied the first coat using a four-inch long, 1/8" nap mini-roller.

Meh.  Didn't work.  The roller didn't hold enough of the liquid so it dried too fast.  Rolling it back and forth left visible tracks and they didn't level out.  Carp. 

So on Saturday after hand-scuffing it with 220-grit sandpaper,  I said, "Oh, all right," and used a brush, like Jayne did.  A good-quality, synthetic one, like the can recommended.  Focussed on getting the stuff down and not overworking it.

Well, the mini-roller tracks were no longer obvious, but I'd missed several places.  "Holidays," real painters call them.  So I went online to see what the forums said about rectifying holidays in a Minwax Polycrylic finish.

Oh, crumb.  Carpity carp.  Found a site that addressed the problem, but it was referring to furniture finishing.  All the forums were uniform in declaring that Minwax Polycrylic is not recommended for floors.  Including the Minwax website.  And the back of the Polycrilic can.  But what are we supposed to do if we don't want our painted finishes to turn yellow?  There's really nothing else out there that'll dry clear.  So I guess we're stuck.

Maneuvered over to a YouTube video where somebody had done a tromp d'oeil painted wood floor and coated it over with six (count 'em, six!) coats of clear acrylic.  And another one where a professional floor finisher was using the product to redo a wood floor.  He was using a paint roller on a pole.  It appeared that he was getting good, even coverage without premature drying or lap marks.  Hey, it might be a good idea for the next coat.  And it would have to be a whole next coat, because not only did I have holidays, I had brush marks as well.

So on Sunday I put my roller and pole together and went to work.  Aaaaggghhhh!!!!  Lacymosa, dies illa!!  It left lap marks.  Baaaaaaad ones.  They showed up white even after the finish had dried.  And even though I tried to be careful and not push it, the nap on the roller left bubbles all over my beautiful painted floor!

Lord, don't let me cuss.   Though I really, really want to.  I really, really, really want--!!

I don't know.  It looks so bad.  All that work, to come to this.  I don't see being able to hand sand that out.  I'm considering using the orbital sander.  Which might rip up the whole paint job, even with 220-grit paper on it.  Whatever happens, it'll need another coat of the Polycrilic afterwards.  This time I think I'll do what I should have done in the first place:  Lay the finish on with a sponge brush and apply it to the "tiles" individually.  And do it very, very, very gently.

Though gentle is not at all how I'm feeling right now.  Aaaaaaagggggghhhhhh!!!!  Disaster!  Tragedy!  Woe!!!!!

Immer Zu

I'm still here.  Actually, I haven't really been any place much other than here.  Not working on the houseblog, no.  But working on the house.  Workingworkingworkingworkingworking ....

Tired, crabby, frustrated; no way I'll get done what I'd hoped to get done by the time my friend from England arrives on the 18th, but still at it, obsessed, devoted, immolated.

I'm only up at my computer now because I was seized suddenly by the fear that I'd forgotten in the throes of house idolatry to pay one of my credit card bills.  So I left the trim I was working on in the basement to run up to the 3rd floor study to make sure.

Yes, it was already paid.  And I'm paying this debt to houseblogdom, putting down a minuscule installment payment on what I owe to my two or three readers, to give you some indication on what's been going on at the Sow's Ear the past month.

Heaven help us, what hasn't?  The spray foam people finally came (no, that was February, but never mind, they did).  The roof repair contractor and his son showed up three or so weeks ago (he was originally scheduled for early December) and took care of everything on the list, and a couple-three other things beside.  What they couldn't rectify was the wet on the face of the chimney breast in the living room, which issue they diagnosed as being due to my having no liner for the hot water heater in my chimney-- the warm water vapor condenses on the cold brick et voilà! failing skim coat and sticky old wallpaper paste on the living room side.  So I've had plumbing contractors marching through sizing up the height of the chimney, and I've accepted a bid from one who's supposed to come install me a metal liner early next week, hopefully before Janet* arrives.  And things have gotten to the point with my own work that I had to get the electrical contractors in to bid out installing properly-grounded circuits for the outlets that go in the baseboards that I hope soon to be reaffixing.  One bid was so astronomical I thought I should suck it up and rewire them myself after all; the other, from the guy who seemed to know more what he was talking about, was low enough to make me feel it wouldn't be worth the time and tribulation for me to try to do it myself.  And unlike the other guy, he can work with the trim installed.  I plan to have him come in May, if I've got the place reassembled by then.

But me?  Damn.  A short list, in no particular order: 
1)  Shellacking woodwork, starting with the stairhall's pieces and going on to the ones for the living room.
2)  Buying select white pine 1x boards and having my friend Steve* rip them to size to replace missing or hopelessly damaged yellow pine originals.
3)  Shellacking white pine replacement pieces to try to get them to match the yellow pine originals (semi-successful, if you don't mind a little streakiness). 
4)  Finishing up the Big Wally's plaster repair I started last month.
5)  Finding out that even Big Wally's won't get rid of a wall bulge caused by settling from the floor above.
6)  Doing an obsessive amount of research on how properly to hang my William Morris wallpaper, and finding out about blankstock liner paper and mix-it-yourself wheat paste and happening on a good source for both.
7)  In the course of said researches, learning about a homemade device that should make it easier for me to remove the old paper from the sheetrocked walls in the dining room and front room, and pulling together the pieces and parts and beginning to make my own.
8)  Trying repeatedly to get the old wallpaper paste removed from the living room walls and failing miserably, unless my goal is to take off all the previous owners' repairs.
9)  Carrying on an extensive email correspondence with the proprietor of the concern referred to in No. 6 and learning from him a) that I can use a Zinsser product called Gardz to encapsulate the old paste and size, and b) what "size" is and how to make it.
10)  Doing the Big Wally's routine on the east wall of the living room, especially down at the bottom along the line of the baseboard, where the plaster seemed to be flapping in the breeze.
11)  Ordering Gardz over the Internet (Lowe's and HD don't carry it around here) and applying a first coat on the north and east LR walls.
12)  Cutting to fit and screwing in pieces of drywall to replace the plaster that fell to pieces when I removed the baseboard along the east living room wall.
13)  Taping cracks in my living room walls with drywall tape and mudding, sanding, and mudding again.  (Which I hate-hate-hate!).
14)  Locating the most workable location for the outlet I've wanted for years in the 1st floor hall, and cutting the hole for it (happily, it falls right in the drywall under what I call the portal between the hall and the living room, where my POs-1 partially closed in what used to be a large doorway.
15)  Taking up the ridiculous sheet vinyl from the hallway floor, and discovering that the plywood underneath seems to be glued as well as nailed down.
16)  Doing the long-postponed measured drawing of the existing structure under the 1st floor hall, and submitting it to the John Bridge Tile Forum to find out if it can support ceramic tile.
17)  Getting an answer from one of the tile pros there that my structure might do, but unless I tear out both the plywood and the original tongue-and-groove subfloor and sink new plywood between the joists, I'll be way out of Code due to the odd riser height at the bottom stair.
18)  Saying O crap! and checking into linoleum tile and other, thinner alternatives, and deciding probably I'll clean up and smooth down the plywood that's there and paint a faux tile pattern instead.
19)  Using some medium red-brown paint left behind by my POs on the existing LR cornice moulding to even out the place where they or somebody got ceiling paint on it, then going over that with two coats of warm-walnut tinted shellac (north wall cornice is done; east wall in progress).
20)  Stripping, repairing, and sanding the trim that goes on the kitchen side of the doorway from the 1st floor hall-- nasty job, since it doesn't seem ever to have been shellacked, so the paint wouldn't just chip.
21)  Removing the rest of the wallpaper from the east and most of the south living room walls (yes, this should have come a lot sooner, but I just remembered).
22)  With the help of my friend Frieda*, remeasuring for the new chair rail for both storeys in the stairhall, sizing the lower part of the walls there, and hanging blankstock on them, but not before going back and filling and patching ten dozen dips and holes I never noticed till the work light was shining on them.
23)  Except for an occasional mowing and covering the roses when a frost warning's on, letting the garden take its own course this spring.

Did I say this was supposed to be a short list?  Gaw.  And I need to go back down the basement and prime that kitchen side trim and the trim for the doorway to my bedroom, because oh, yeah, I got the loan of a nail gun today, and if all goes well I can start rehanging trim this weekend and that needs to go up before-- well, never mind, it'd take too long.


Immer zu!  Immer zu!  Ohne Rast und Ruh'!

Is It Soup Yet?

I've been at this floor and stair shellacking business since the wee hours of December 13th.  Aren't I finished by now?



Well, maybe.  Not quite sure.

You see, one thing I always liked about the shellac finish on my upper staircase is the effect it gives, not so much surface-shiny-glossy, but that the wood is somehow under water, and you could reach down into the clear finish and touch the warm golden surface an inch or two below.

In October and November of 2010 it took me about ten coats of 1.5 pound cut Kusmi #1 buttonlac to achieve that, and regardless of color issues, when it came to the 2nd floor hallway floor and the main stairs down to the 1st floor, my resolution was to keep on adding coats of the untinted buttonlac until that's what I got.

Have I?

Well, I can say that watching the grain emerge more and more with each coat has been almost a poetic experience.  It's felt like each floorboard was a rough gem I was polishing, each with its own distinctive beauties, and I've been laboring to bring those beauties to light.

So has that been accomplished?

Maybe first I should say something about how I've been going about this project.  I have to laugh about all the stuff I bought eons ago to make the job easier and didn't use.  Like the lambswool pad and the three-part screw-in mop handle.  Ha.  Can you imagine me keeping any sort of control with that rig in my little L-shaped hall?  With my lousy eyesight?  Not to mention how much shellac it'd soak up and waste!  Instead, I chose to follow the advice given on a post here by Ralph the Woodworking Guy.  That is, I followed him as regards the sanding and wiping-down prep work, and especially as to the use of the 1" fine brush.  Two or three years ago I bought several good, if not luxurious, artist's brushes of various sizes just for the shellac work, and I had a  nice 1" model right at hand.

Well.  Early into the first coat (the one that should have been untinted-- sob!), I discovered what a blinking long time a 1" brush requires and how little shellac it actually carries to the surface.  Yeah, Mr. Ralph was probably working with skinny modern 2-1/4" floorboards.  Mine measure nearly 4" in breadth.  So I moved to a 2" brush of the same type and haven't looked back.

I think I'm getting better at the application, keeping the brush well-filled and making long, smooth strokes.  Ralph's recommendation is good, to do it floorboard by floorboard.  Works well in maintaining the all-essential wet edge, and the joints make a good boundary at the sides.  Though given how I filled the cracks with sliced-down strips of old disused floorboards, my floor is pretty tight and a little overlap was inevitable.  (*smiles*)  Standing up, you can't really see where the filler strips are, unless you're purposely looking for them.

I assuredly did not use the 2.5 pound cut he advises.  Yeah, I guess that'd give you good build in three coats, but I know myself and my brushing abilities.  I left enough weird streaks on the upper staircase with a 1.5 pound cut to try that.

No, this time I took to heart something said in a comment on The Prairie Box blog.  There Mr. (or Ms.) Anonymous recommended more coats in a 1-pound cut for quicker application and drying, and ultimately for a stronger, more durable floor.  Well, anybody who's successfully shellacked a floor in a house with "3 brutal cats" with claws is worth listening to.  I've also heeded his (or her) advice about the increased and increasing waiting times between coats.  For the upper stairs I only waited an hour or so between each coat.  And of course, I let myself and the four animals (brutal, with claws!) onto the finish way too soon.  Not going to make that mistake again!

Which is why it's over three weeks since I started this project, I've worked pretty steadily on it, barring four or so days at Christmas, and only today have I finished applying the sixteenth coat of shellac.

Yeah, ten-plus-six.  Sixteenth.  Hey, that would have been ten or so coats at a 1.5 pound cut, right?

But for whatever reason, I haven't yet achieved the "under water" effect I'm looking for.  I'm judging by the shellac's finish on a certain large piece of soft/open grain on one particular floorboard, and it doesn't look limpid and even with the hard grain next to it, it looks mottled and glisten-y.  What can be wrong?

Nothing, maybe, except different wood on the T&G boards than on the upper treads.  It's all yellow pine, but the treads are more close-grained.  And-- this is the kicker-- I don't have any artificial lights shining obliquely on the upper stairs, as I do in the hallway.  The fact that I couldn't get the effect I wanted was bugging me, so I took a light and shone it on the stair treads.  Yeah, in the stairwell I get some of the same glistening effect, though there I can't see it.

Which is why I'm saying Enough with sixteen coats.  On the hallway at least.  On the main stairs I really have glisten where I want limpidity, and I was thinking they were going to need four more coats, at least.

But maybe not.  I was on the Shellac.net FAQ page earlier this evening and it said something about rubbing-out.  Rubbing out?  On researching this, I find that that's what I really need to do to even out the finish and get the effect I want.  I think.  I've heard you don't want to make it too glossy, or every last (claw) scratch will show and scream.

Maybe I'll first experiment with rubbing out the main stair treads.  They look dull the way they are, whereas the overall effect in the hallway is just fine.  Very likely it won't gain me a thing to coat the main stair treads any more, and it might be counterproductive.

So can I say the shellacking on the stairs and hallway floor is done?

Maybe.  I'm not sure.  Because "everybody" says that dewaxed shellac is what you really need on top to shed water, and I have a nice can of Zinsser SealCoat I can use.  Or I can dewax some of the Kusmi.  But I recall Ron at Shellac.net telling me that the Kusmi #1 buttonlac is fine and hard for floors just as it is.  And really, once it'd had time to cure on the upper stairs it had no trouble resisting the wet snow the cable guys tracked in last January.  The water beaded right up.  And if I lay down a coat of dewaxed shellac, isn't there the likelihood that it'd just get rubbed off in the polishing process?

If I'm going to do the dewaxed, I need to get it applied tomorrow.  I definitely want to give the finish a good week or more to cure before I allow shoe and pet traffic on it, let alone think of rubbing it out.  And as it is the foam insulation people may well be coming to deal with the attic late next week.  So time is at a premium.

So is it soup yet?  Yes.  No.  Give it several more days to simmer.  But it's getting there!

Study in White, Gray, and Copper. And a Little Beige.

Since I posted last, I've taken an obligatory break from house renovating.  Had a couple of big exams to study for.  Found out today that I passed the first one, but I'm still waiting for the results of the one I took a week after that. 

But now I've got that behind me,* I've made some progress. Not a lot of progress, but some. 

Which is to say that last Wednesday, I got the coat of gritted Sherwin-Williams "Pearl White" onto the basement stair wall.  It was probably a good thing to let the primer sit since the first week in July.  That way I could see if any water stains bled through.  None did.  Missed a few spots, which I touched up on Saturday.  And it's nice that with the normal basement lighting and the radon exhaust pipe in the corner, the new.y-painted outside wall and the (unmildewy part of the) unrepainted interior wall match up pretty well.  I think I'd have to call attention to it for anyone else to notice they weren't the same.

This past Saturday I laid on the first coat of floor paint at the foot of the stairs.  Turned out the previous owners' can of Sear's "Natural Slate Gray" was not only still good, it was unopened and yet never used.  No, the color doesn't match the rest of the floor in the central part of the basement.  But from what I discovered when I gave the target area a good scrubbing Friday evening, it would have, once.  I only repainted a piece about 3.5 ft. by 6.5 ft.  That's all the floor space down there that's bare!  And it's enough so it looks all right from the upper landing.

Got a second coat of the gray on this evening.  It needed it.  It also needed two or three days for the first coat to fully dry.  I keep the dehumidifier going down there, but even so, it's humid these summer days.  I'll give the second coat time to dry, too, then move the metal pantry shelf back against the wall.  And touch up where its legs were.

That gray floor paint is odd, though.  I guess I'm used to the variegated appearance of the old floor, with the old red paint showing through along with glimpses of bare concrete under that, and dirt and miscellaneous spills over all.  I can't capture the effect with my current camera, but believe me, I look down from the landing and it seems that my basement stairs go down into a gray pool, whose uniform surface hides strange life.  I'm almost glad I have to step over the side stringer of the stairs to keep from treading on it.  I almost feel I'd splash in or some scaly gray hand would break the surface, grasp my ankle, and pull me down.

As for the copper, I made my trip to the Home Depot on Saturday and got the tubing and fittings to install my new water filter and softener.  My friend Frieda's* son Mike* dropped by a week or two ago, and says he can do it, but isn't sure when-- it's a longer job than he'd expected.  And now I've got the materials for whenever he can make the time for me.

At least, I thought I did.  Talked to an older guy after church on Sunday, a man who's been doing general contracting of the residential sort all his life, and he tells me that Home Depot copper is all seconds, and I should return it and get it at a plumbing supply store instead.  Oh, joy.  Anybody else hear anything like that?  I'm not unwilling to take his advice, but it was such a pain getting that 10 ft. piece of tubing home in my PT Cruiser, and now I've got to rope it in again and take it back?  And how am I supposed to explain why I'm bringing it all back?  And then I'd have to price out the local plumbing supply stores.  Fun, fun, fun.  Maybe I should talk to Mike and see what he thinks.

And the little bit of beige?  Maybe that should be "a little less beige."  Studying eight to ten hours a day for three straight weeks can get a little intense.  I didn't dare take a break online.  So I'd vary the routine by wandering around my dining and living rooms peeling off whatever pieces of old beige wallpaper that were willing to come loose.  I was pleased to see it was coming off the drywalled-over portions almost as well as it did off the plaster.  Maybe I won't have to order any special remover solvent after all.
_____________________________
*Should say, "Now that I've got that behind me for now."   These tests are in two parts each, and while I did very well on the multiple choice part of the second one, I didn't finish the essay in part two, and I'm told that spells certain doom.  So I'm looking at applying for a retake and trying again.

Soft Water Is Hard

So what am I supposed to do?

A couple months ago, I started noticing a little water on my basement laundry room floor.  From the washing machine, I thought, and since it wasn't bad and dried fairly quickly, I ignored it.


About two weeks ago I observed that the wetness was really coming from around my Sear's Kenmore water softener, a few feet up the basement floor slope from the washer.  I looked inside the tank, and it was full of water!  I've never seen that before.  Never, ever.  I tried regenerating right away, but the water only crept higher.  Not what one wants, right?


So I unplugged it, found out from the manual (which was hanging there in its plastic envelope) how to activate the bypass valve (good job for a rubber mallet), and went upstairs and called Sears.  Oh.  $65.00 just to come out and look, before parts and labor.  Not in the budget.  

I sent out a veiled SOS to my friends on Facebook.  Too veiled, obviously, because I got no response, not even one word of useless advice.  Oh, well, there's always the Internet.  So I Googled "Kenmore water softener full of water leaking."  And got advice there, yes, I did.  There were at least four different things various posters recommended be tried, each one of them looked complicated, and each one of them seemingly had to be done first.  

Please understand:  My water softener is in a dark corner of the basement, my eyesight is not very good, I never can see that stupid gray-on-gray display, and I couldn't find the place in the manual to show me where to find the venturi or the resin bed or anything else that needed to be cleaned or adjusted or whatever it was.  So I put it off.  

On the weekend, at the customary front porch gathering, I asked some of my neighbors if they'd ever serviced their water softeners.  No, they hadn't.  In fact, the guy across the street said they didn't even have one.

Well, if they can get along with hard water with a family of seven, I supposed I could for awhile, too.  And I left the softener on bypass the next ten days. 

But yesterday I think I spent a half hour or more rewashing supposedly clean dishes from the dishwasher.  I folded some white laundry last night and it looked yellow and dingy.  I can't get my shampoo to lather, and the water tastes funny.  Still I was putting off doing anything about it, until this afternoon after work.  

I have lots of laundry to do.  I'd really like it to come out clean.  Oh, phooey, I had to try cleaning the venturi at least.  I mean, come on, buck up.  Found the diagram in the manual (I'd been looking at the installation guide before--oops).  Found the venturi on the appliance.  Took it apart.  Barring a little red iron scum, it was clean.  Put it back together and turned the softener on.  Made no difference-- water level still high.  Found the page with the Manual Regeneration Check.  Put the softener through its paces: brining, brining rinse, backwash, fast rinse.  Water level actually went down a little bit, out through the drain hose-- then started filling up, higher, higher, scarily higher.  Oh, no, you don't!  Unplugged it and hammered the bypass back in place.

Back to the Internet.  No, sorry, the only way to get the water out is to siphon it or suck it out with the wet-dry vac.  OK, fine, I've got one of those.  After a few vacuum tankfuls (and a salty-wet basement floor), the water in the softener was gone.  But my vac was sucking up flakes of salt off the bottom.  Going by the mop handle that I use to distribute salt when I fill the WS, maybe 2" or 3" was hardened in there.  

Time for the hot water to melt it out. 


Hot water, hot water, hot water.  Ram it with the mop handle to break it up.  Ram, ram, ram.  


Take a look to see if I'm making any progress.  Poke the camera down in to document the event. Take a few pictures, using the flash.


Review the pictures to see what's going on, since I can't see down there very well.

Uhhhh, wait a minute.  There's this big cylinder in the back of the WS, that looks like it's made of heavy cardboard, but when you rap it, it sounds more like ceramic.  If I understand my manual correctly, that's the resin tank.  And there, down at about the 0.5 salt level, was what looked like a V-shaped rip in its side.

Did I do that damage right then, myself, with my plastic mop handle?  But no, the picture I took right after I got the water sucked out shows the crack already there.  And I haven't gone after a salt bridge for several months.  No, that resin tank cracked by itself.

I've been on the Internet (did I mention that before?).  I've learned that a cracked resin tank is doom for a water softener.  That if it ruptures, it can be doom for whatever's in your basement (especially if the water's still running through the WS).  That the resin in a broken tank can go running throughout your whole plumbing system, and while I haven't delved into what that means, it sounds bad.  And that replacing the resin tank and its contents can cost more than buying a new water softener.


My resin tank is toast.  I am not going to experiment with running the WS with the tank in that condition.  So what do I do?  This is not in the budget.  Do I stretch my credit even further and buy a new water softener?  Do I run hard water for the foreseeable future and ruin my clothes and coat my plumbing with lime? 

Blast it, what do I do?

The Slog, It Continues

Sometimes it pays to be ignorant.

Back in the summer when I made up the shellac sample for my floors, I used a piece of floorboard that my previous owners two back had pressed into service as a shim piece when they moved the front bedroom door.  It sanded down very quickly, and I thought the boards in the 2nd floor hall would be the same.

Um, well, no.

As of last night, I've been at the floor sanding game for portions of three days, and I can't claim to be even 15% done.  Something to do with the fact that the shim board was obviously unused, whereas people have been walking on this floor and grinding dirt into it for nearly a hundred years?

But let's take it in order.

Last Saturday the 6th when I was feeling fed up about that recalcitrant stairway tread, I got something done (as I thought) by patching the nail holes and other irregularities in the hall floor with tinted Zar wood filler.  The tint job wasn't the same each time, and I can only hope that once the shellac is down it'll all even out.

Thursday I got to the sanding.  I hung plastic over the doors in a symbolic attempt to keep the dust out of the bedroom, bathroom, and 3rd floor, and off I went with my belt sander with the 80-grit paper!  The idea being to take off the high places of the cupped floorboards.

Well, I didn't put any gouges in the surface.  And the high places at the edges did go down a bit.  But the dirty dark middles stayed as dirty and dark as ever.  And the Zar filler seemed proof against any attempt at abrasion.

More depressing, just that little bit of work put a lot of crud in the sanding belt.  And those things are expensive.  Enough of that.  Take it back downstairs and put it away.

All right, get out the orbital half-sheet sander.  And the mouse.  Both with 40-grit.   Sand, sand, sand, sand, sand.  Couple of hours later (when I had other things I had to go do), the three or four boards I was working on looked a little better, but like nothing that could be called done.

At the same time, I noticed that some of the bigger holes I'd filled the previous Saturday had sunk in, so I topped them off before I went to bed. 

Friday, I was at it again.  I extended my incursions maybe three or four more boards' worth.  For another hour and a half.  The photos reveal pathetically little progress.

Whereas my work light revealed that a couple of the boards right outside my bedroom door are in terrible shape and needed more filling.  I filled them, and if that stuff goes dark under the shellac, I'm in a lot of trouble.

Yesterday I actually looked online to see if it was possible to rent a small floor sander.  But the sites talking about technique all blithely admitted that it's very likely that an amateur like me is going to inflict a few circular gouges before getting the hang of the thing, and my hallway's too small to practice on. 

Late in the evening (after an afternoon spent out in the fine weather cleaning up the garden), I was up and back at it.  Decided maybe I should give the belt sander another chance.  This time I was working into the hall closet.  Belt sander took down a few more ridges.  Nice.  Interior of boards remained gunky.  Not so nice. Usual dance of the three sanders.  Maybe I should bear down on the orbital sander a bit more?  Marginally more effective, but not much.  But I suppose the cleaned up area is expanding.  If I don't look at it too closely.

But something different has got to be done.  I believe in taking the time needed to do a project well, but this is ridiculous.  So around midnight I cleaned up, went downstairs, and got online again.  This time I looked up "Good belt sander technique."  And found what looks like a very good article on the American Woodworker website called "Tame Your Belt Sander."  And the most useful thing I learned from it was that not only is it okay to run the machine at a 45 degree angle across the boards you're trying to level, it's absolutely advised.  Oh, yes, and that you should always lift the sander vertically off the work piece at the end of the run and never turn it off or on while it's on the surface.  And that you can clean up gunky belts with an abrasive stick or with a wire brush.  Which I have. 

(Oh.  Guess I should fish those used ones out of the trash . . .  )

But as to what I was saying about ignorance.  I was roaming around other sites to see what else they could teach me, and I came across this forum, wherein a hapless would-be DIYer asks,

"I have no idea how to refinish wood floors, but ours need it. I suppose you rent a sander and buy materials at Home Depot or someplace similar.  Anyone ever done it? Any advice?  Thanks!"

And damned if all but one or two of the many replies didn't say, "Hire it out!"  "It will take forever!"  "It'll cripple your knees!"  "It'll ruin your back!"  "Hire it out!"  Probably the most pungent (if not putrid) of them wryly suggested, "Have s*x with the moldering corpse of a goat. Why? It will seem like a day at the beach compared to sanding your [own] floors."

Funny, the typical houseblogger seems to be of sterner stuff.  Unless everybody else is hiring out their floor sanding and just not saying?

Well, I doubt I could get anybody to come do my little hall.  And I doubt even more if I'd trust anybody else to do it.  So I need to invest in a few more belts for the Hitachi, and some more 40-grit hook-and-loop paper for the B&D mouse, and just keep at it.  And definitely some more wood filler.  I found more holes and cracks that needed filling last night and the tub is empty.

Some Finish Decisions. I Think.

Early last week, after the previous post, I'd made a decision on what I was going to do about my shellac.  I was going to buy a great big gallon of the Zinsser Bullseye Amber at the blue and gray store, tint it with the aniline dyes I've mixed, and use it on all my floors and trim.  The buttonlac I'd save for a few furniture pieces I have to do.

But Tuesday afternoon I showed up at Lowe's, and the Bullseye shellac can didn't say what the pound cut was.  And there's this other shellac product Zinsser has called SealCoat, and it's 100% dewaxed.  Meaning the other kind isn't.  But the SealCoat can didn't list the pound cut, either.  And the kid behind the paint counter hadn't a clue.  I wasn't about to blow upwards of $25 on the wrong thing, so after getting the scissors I needed to cut sandpaper, I went home and did some research on line.

OK, Bullseye is still 3-pound cut, and SealCoat is 2-pound.  Hmm.  If wax is not that great, maybe I can just tint the SealCoat and put on three coats of that, with a couple of thinned-down coats of polyurethane over it?

Did some more research.

And ended up back on the Shellac.net site, where I'm reading about the buttonlac I already have, and it says this: 

"Buttonlac is a unique shellac product preferred by restorers and those looking for a very protective shellac finish.  It is superb for French polishing due to its hardness. Button Shellacs are prepared by the hand made process of heating the seedlac in a cotton tube. The resin secretes through the pores of the cloth and the molten shellac is formed into buttons. The processing heat polymerizes the resin, resulting in a very tough & moisture resistant finishing material.  Button Shellac is preferred for finishing floors and interior woodwork."

Oh.  Floors and interior woodwork.  I do seem to recall having a phone conversation to this effect with Ron at Shellac.net.  Just about a year ago, it was.  I shot him off an email Tuesday evening, full of questions about poly over shellac, could I get the right tint with the red mahogany and dark walnut dyes I already have, what if my dog peed on a shellacked floor, etc., etc.  A few minutes later, I got impatient and called him.

He said yes, I wanted to leave the wax in the Kusmi #1 I'd mixed.  Yeah, I could do poly over the shellac . . . if I laid on a coat of the dewaxed kind first . . . and if I really don't mind losing the repairability of the shellac finish.  Up to me.  As to the dyes, he didn't think I'd need to lay in a supply of golden oak or anything of the sort.  Just try a very little bit of red mahogany, and the natural tone of the yellow pine would supply the gold.  And if I ran out of the buttons for the floors, he could have more to me in three days.

That put me firmly back in the do-it-myself buttonlac camp.  On Wednesday I sanded down some original yellow pine floorboards (what was left of them after I'd sliced them for gap-filler strips) and on Thursday I tinted up some of the Kusmi #1 mix with a wee bit of the mahogany dye (we're talking 1/4 teaspoon in 3/8 cup of 1.5 pound cut shellac-- is that 1/72?).  Over the next two days I brushed on six (count 'em, 6) coats of this mixture on three different old floorboard remnants, and I think I have a reasonably good tone for my hall floor and stair treads.  (Note that the piece shown above is fully-coated only on the left.  Otherwise we have a 6-5-4-3-2-1 sample).  Ron was right-- the yellow in the boards was enough.  Some might think six coats is too much, but I like the easy way the 1.5 lb. cut goes on and everything I've read tells me that several thin coats will hold up better than fewer thicker ones.  I tried splashing some water on it and it beaded right up.

(Two boards have shellac only at the ends; I was reserving the rest in case I needed to test other tones. Yeah,
there's a stripe of build-up next to the bare or less-coated wood.  I've read I can avert that by starting to brush the shellac on about an inch or so away from the end of the workpiece, continue to the other end, then quickly brush back all the way to the first end, picking up and evening out that first deposit of finish on the way.  Should work if I can keep the tread shellac off the stair stringers in the process.)

All this led to a decision:  Instead of successively coating the 3rd floor stairs, 2nd floor hall, and the main stairs (which had long been my assumption), I would now start on the 3rd floor stairs alone.  I'll give them five or six coats of shellac only, then live with them for awhile and see what the dog, cats, and I do to them.  If I think they still need a layer of polyurethane over, I can repair any damage to the shellac and go from there.  Meanwhile, I can be working on the hall floor and the stairs down to the 1st floor.

But today, I had a brainstorm.  You know how I've been stressing over how to keep the animals off the work?  I already had figured out that I can use my tension-sprung baby gate to exclude them from the 2nd floor when I'm doing the stairs to the 3rd.  But I was looking down the stairs to the 1st floor today, and I said to myself, "You know, if you replaced the balusters to the stairwell first, you could put that gate at the bottom of the stairs between the wall and the newel post, and do the upstairs hall and maybe even some of the steps below without the cats and dog in the way."

Hmm.  But that means mixing up the dark shellac for the woodwork in the stairhall and refinishing all that first.

What of it?  A lot of it is vertical surfaces, and maybe it'd be better to have that done before I do the floors.

So tonight I mixed up another jar of button shellac, a pint and a half of 2-pound cut Kusmi #2.  It's still getting shaken and dissolved.  This batch I plan to keep more of, as this time I won't be trying fruitlessly to get rid of the wax!

Surveying the Battlefield

Now that all the loose plaster areas on my sloped study ceiling are secured back to the lath using the Big Wally's PlasterMagic® system, I can reflect on what I've accomplished, how I'd do it differently if I could go back and do it over, and give some highly gratuitous advice on how you can do it, too, probably with better success:

1) The day I saw the cracks (back in 2007!), if I couldn't repair it right away, I'd put up bracing to keep it from getting any worse.

2) If I didn't brace it when I first noticed the cracks, I'd certainly brace it before I drilled One Single Hole.

3) Rory B's probably got this in the directions someplace, but if you suspect a large section of ceiling plaster is losing its grip . . .

a) First find out how thick your plaster is. You can tell somewhat by feeling the "jump" your 3/16" masonry bit makes to the lath once it gets through the plaster. But if that feels like working blind, get out the big guns, like a ½" masonry bit, and drill a hole big enough for you to see.

b) Then take your 3/16" masonry drill and drill a hole maybe 3' or 4' or so away from the crack or exposed lath edge. Does it penetrate only the thickness of your plaster? Good. But don't be complacent. Drill a couple more test holes in line with it, parallel to your crack. If they're all good, move in 6" and try again. When you find your drill going in 1/8" or more past the thickness of your plaster, that's where you start.

4) Next you drill your field pattern. The directions on the conditioner bottle say that should be an 8" to 12" square grid, avoiding the spaces between the laths, of course (mark them with a pencil and try again).

(Me, I went for overkill and drilled mine at 6" x 6". May explain why I went through so much of the adhesive so fast. But my plaster is thin, only 3/8", and I wanted to avert cracking.)

5) After that (is your bracing up?), drill your edge holes, about 1½" from the crack or exposed lath, 3" o.c., which should hit every other lath if you're going perpendicular to it.

6) Note that No. 4 & No. 5 are S.O.P. for this system. And take as read the part about vacuuming out the holes, using the conditioner, squirting in the adhesive, etc., etc. But for your saggy ceiling, be sure to begin screwing in the plastic washers at the point farthest from the crack or edge. This will bring your plaster up gently and gradually and go a long way to prevent further cracking and collapse.

7) I readhered some smaller cracked pieces around the edges. This works if your plaster is thick. But at 3/8", they cracked further and look really bad. I'm hoping-trusting-praying that the final skim coat will cover them over, but right now, I feel I should've pulled them off and left a clean edge.

8) The directions say to leave the screws and washers in for 24 to 48 hours. I was paranoid and left them up for twice that long, at least. This doesn't hurt anything. Your drill will back them out just fine.

9) When you pull away or pry off the washers, some of the paint may come away with them. You can correct this when you go over the area with joint compound. But you may, like me, discover that the paint layer is very thick, very plasticky, and very loose (the plastic factor may help explain why the plaster failed in the first place). In that case, I'd carefully peel it away until you get to a place where it's good and adhered. No point in trying to achieve a nice smooth surface over loose paint.

10) About surface protection and clean up: Yes, you can wipe off drips with warm water and a sponge. You can scrap off hardened adhesive with a putty knife. But the water in your bucket will get filmy, and despite your wiping, you will end up with a shiny film on your ceiling or wall surface. This doesn't matter in your target area, since it will need repainted or repapered anyway. But for adjacent surfaces and objects . . .

a) Remove them if you can from the field of battle. Never mind if it's an annoyance and a pain. Do it.

b) For anything that can't be moved, know that newspaper or contractor's kraft paper will not suffice. The Big Wally's conditioner is made to penetrate lath and plaster. So you think it won't soak right through that paper? It certainly does, and I've got the newsprint glued to my painted wall and trim to prove it. Use intact, heavy grade plastic or plastic-backed dropcloth instead. No rips or holes allowed. And tape it continuously along its top edge, especially if you're repairing a ceiling. Otherwise, that stuff will find its way behind it and underneath, believe me.

c) If things goof up (don't they always?) and a scraper won't do to get the hardened conditioner or adhesive off, I've found that a little Ivory® soap and elbow grease on one of those green abrasive kitchen sponges works in time to get it off. Or you can use Goo-Gone® for items (like my 1950 black-with-gold-leaf Singer sewing machine) that won't bear scrubbing. Though you might try the scraper again on those.

Reflecting on Item No. 6, I used that method with the plaster remaining on the sloped part of my study ceiling, and it worked well. I did not think of doing it before that when I tackled the loose plaster on the flat part of the ceiling, continguous to the sloped ceiling failure site. I saw it cracking, too, and wanted to get it secured right away, before I started the sloped ceiling repair. I began drilling in my washers right at the cracks, with the result that the plaster went all pillowy and pitted. I didn't even get it up to the lath sufficiently and had to go back and try bringing it up again, after I'd explored further out and discovered that the sagging area was more extensive than I'd realized.

But maybe it wouldn't have mattered regardless of where I put in my first washers. When I started peeling away the loose paint in this area, I found that the plaster above it was crumbly and lacked all integrity. A strip of heavy paper joint tape was revealed, showing where some previous owner had repaired the place before. I don't see joint compound or spackle adhering to any of this crap, and even if it did, it'd be an irregular mess.

I vacuumed up the plaster mess yesterday. But when I can face this again I shall have to come back with the drop cloths and tape and demolish every last bit of bad plaster on the flat ceiling repair area, clean it all out, and replaster the gaps. I hate doing plaster overhead, but it's not as if I can't do it or haven't done it before. I have the pictures to prove I have, after all.

"When I can face this again" is the operative term. I have a house guest coming in two months and now that (please, God and Rory Brennan!) no more plaster should be falling down, I'm going to stop out of the 3rd floor plaster work to concentrate on getting the 1st and 2nd floors liveable before she comes.

I only hope there aren't any more areas of ceiling failure lurking . . . Couple days ago I buttoned up some plaster on my 1st floor hallway ceiling, around the perimeter of the stairwell, and found that the loose areas went much farther from the cracks than I had any reason to expect. Paranoia strikes deep . . . I find myself drilling exploratory holes in random places in the third floor ceiling . . . and getting nervous about rain on the roof . . . and worrying that my dog's strident barking will set up dangerous vibrations à la Memorex . . .

But then I reflect that the reason I fear plaster falling is the very reason I don't want to tear it out and put up drywall. So I'll just keep watch. And keep the Big Wally's handy.

Damage Control

Oh, to go back a year and repair the plaster over my 3rd floor study stairwell, right after I bought my adjustable ladder!

Maybe then I wouldn't have the mess and hassle I have now.

But I didn't, and I do. And unlike the semi-refinished woodwork around here, the falling plaster refuses to let itself be ignored.

So yesterday I called Big Wally's Plaster Magic up in Brattleboro, Vermont, and got Lauri Klenkel, aka Mrs. Rory Brennan. She remembered me from the Howard Hall Farm class. I told her I had a mess on my hands and gave her the URL so she could look at Sunday night's blog entry.

Oh, yes, right. That is a mess, isn't it?

But not an irretrievable one. Rory had just stepped out, so Lauri was hesitant to give a final pronouncement on how I should proceed. But she definitely thought piecing the fallen chunks back together would be the best way to go. In the meantime, she said, I should affix some kind of lath or 1x material to the ceiling to keep the loose stuff from coming down. She'd give Rory the message to call me later to advise me what else to do.

That was yesterday. Mr. Brennan hasn't been able to get back with me yet, but that's okay because I was too busy today doing what I knew I needed to do anyway.

Doing, that is, what I ought to have done late yesterday afternoon right after I got off the phone to Vermont. I did use some spare plastic washers to anchor up one or two of the loose plaster pieces. That'd do, I figured, till I could get to Lowe's for longer drywall screws and the 1x's. Which I should have done immediately thereafter.

But did I? Nooooo! I got on the computer until it was too late to go. Today, I didn't even begin to do anything about securing the loose plaster until it was after noon.

But then I got onto it. I really did. Especially after I began to hear rustlings on the plastic dropcloth around the stairs, that were not made by any of my cats. Whoops! Keys failing!

Down I ran to the basement virtuously to cut some 1x3's I had to the correct length. Meanwhile, up on the 3rd floor, several square feet more of plaster were giving up their hold and coming down.

Okay, okay, I get the message! Definitely time for serious damage control. I was off to the blue and gray store; do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Bought four 1x2x6's and a box of coarse 2" drywall nails.

I cut the wood strapping to the right length (well, mostly. Don't know why that one ended up short) and brought it upstairs to screw it to the ceiling.

This was the point when my low blood sugar kicked in and filled me with woe, angst, existential gloom, and general consternation. I could not get the screws to screw in. And when I did, they weren't long enough to hold. Aaaagghhh!!! I can't do this! What is wrong with me? Why aren't I rich enough to hire somebody to help me do this? Why am I single-- if I were married, I'd have someone around who'd have to help me do this! What if all the plaster in the room falls down? Why are all my friends not available right now? Why? why? why? Woe! woe! woe!

(Sorry.)

Going back to bed and sucking my thumb wasn't an option. So I did what any normal DIYer would do in the circumstances-- I drove back to Lowe's for a box of 3" coarse drywall nails and more 1x2 wood strips and a packet of Phillips-head driver bits. My head was so woolly I couldn't verbalize what the last item was called and the clerk looked at me as if I were the world's worst ditz.

Never mind; I found what I needed and got it home. With the help of a late lunch (which finally kicked in) and my old corded drill (which still works, thank God, and has better torque than the battery-operated one), I got the strapping up. Hopefully the plaster will now cease its rain of terror. The worst gap around the edges is now down to a half inch. I can do something with that.

While I'm waiting for more supplies (the special washers, mainly) from Big Wally's, what I need to do is secure the loose pieces of lath. And fish out the broken plaster keys from between it and the plaster.

After that, I'm not sure. Lauri Brennan thinks it'd be easier for me to put the existing plaster pieces back up. But the more I look at this void over my stairway, the more I wonder if I'd rather take a crack at replastering it.

I mean, I did take that class, didn't I?

The Ants Go Marching . . .

I've decided to go with Grover*.

Grover's* the rep for the third pest control company I called yesterday. He came late in the forenoon today, as appointed. For the third time, I conducted the tour: Little ants in the kitchen, big ants in the woodpile, big dumb solitary bees or wasps in the vegetable garden pavement.

Grover* saw the kitchen ants and said, "Those are pavement ants." Oh. Not Pharaoh ants, or sugar ants, or little black ants. Pavement ants.

He saw the carpenter ants on the woodpile. Yep, they're there, got to be taken care of.

Then on some hunch or other, he headed for the far northeast corner of my backyard, to the Norway maple. He went round the back of it, and found the old wound that faces the fence, which I never pay attention to. "You've got carpenter ants in this tree, too."

I certainly did, a whole squadron of the half-inch-long critters, busily scurrying up and down the bark to some unseen nest above. There were so many, my dog stared at them, standing at point.

Then I asked about the whatever-they-ares hovering over their holes in the garden paving.

"They're definitely not hornets or yellowjackets," said Grover*. "See, they're solitary. They're not aggressive at all." And I guess they weren't, considering we were standing practically right on top of their nests, with them flying around our ankles.

So I'm going to leave the solitary bees/wasps in the garden alone.

But the ants are another story. A war story, in this case. The best weapon of choice seems to be a slow-working residual chemical that the ants will track right down into the nests, where it'll stunt and stop the growth of the young and finally kill the adults.

It's cruel and heartless I am, sure, but it's not that I love the little ants less, but that I love my house more.

Grover's* price for an initial treatment plus three more applied quarterly came in right in between the bids I got from Bert* and Ernie* yesterday. He asked me if the way high bid was Bert's*.

"Yes, it was," said I.

"They're always high. And it's amazing how many people believe it has to be that expensive, because they don't get a second or third bid."

And Ernie's*? I think his was way too low. No way those insects could be taken care of in one or two visits.

Besides, Ernie* said I had Pharaoh ants in the kitchen, and I looked it up and they're not Pharaoh ants at all. Pharaoh ants are yellowish or reddish tan, and practically transparent. Mine are opaque and shiny black. And Pharaoh ants are, as I read it, panic-in-the-streets difficult to get rid of. And known disease carriers. So I have to wonder about Ernie's* cheerful attitude yesterday when he told me that's what I had marching through my pantry.

Anyway, Grover's* coming late morning on Monday to engage in Stage 1 of Operation Stash the Frass. I see it as an act of altruism: Not only will killing off the carpenter ants benefit me, it'll also do a good turn to my neighbors: Their house is all of wood.

Bugged and Buzzed

True confession: For the past few weeks I've been waging war against little black ants in my kitchen.

I've put down diatomaceous earth on their trails and around the house. I've scattered the Amdro ant block baits here and there.

And there's a lot fewer than there were, but by ones and twos, I still have them.

And then, out in my vegetable garden, I have some sort of hornet or wasp or bee infesting my cobblestone paving. They're there every year, from June to September, at least. I see more and more holes in the sand between the stones, and even so holes in the garden soil itself. These insects seem to be rather aimless and daft, buzzing in circles a few inches to a foot above the pavement, especially when it's sunny and bright. They don't like rain, or even shade, and go in when it's cloudy or wet.

Me, I go in when they're out. I don't want to risk weeding or cultivating or harvesting while they're up and active.

So between the ants and the hormuts, I called in an exterminator today to see what I needed to do.

Guy comes this noon. Call him Bert*. Checked out the ant problem in the kitchen (didn't see any at the time, but I let him know what I see). Out in the backyard, Bert* makes a beeline (lol!) for my woodpile, next to the wood board fence. Oh, fun, here's a problem I didn't anticipate: I have carpenter ants in the woodpile. Yeah, I saw one. Yeah, they're bad news for wood, and saying I have a brick house doesn't make me immune. Or the neighbors, either.

Carpenter ants have to be dealt with, regardless. And the pile has powderpost beetles, too.

Bert* the exterminator guy looks at my hornet problem in the vegetable garden. Says, "That's ground bees."

Says, "It'll be $225 to get rid of the carpenter ants, and another $50 for the kitchen ants and the ground bees. Then we'll come back every thirty days until winter, then pick up again next spring, for six more applications at $78 each."

Bert's* a nice guy. Buys a couple of my green Brandywine tomatoes off me. But we're definitely into "get a couple more estimates" territory. I tell him I'll let him know: I have to finish killing the spurge in the garden paving and unloading the woodpile onto my friend Steve* (who has a thing for burning wood outside) before anything can be done, anyway.

I call exterminator guy No. 2. Ernie* arrives about an hour after Bert* leaves. Ernie* does get a keek at the ants in the kitchen: "Those are Pharaoh ants. They're unusual around here." But he tells me how he can be a modern chemical Moses, driving the forces of Egypt into the Red Sea, or at least out of my house.

Out we go to the backyard. Ernie* sees evidence of the powderpost beetles in the woodpile. Doesn't see the carpenter ants. I tell him I definitely have seen them, so he has to take my word for it.

We look at the vegetable garden. Ernie* takes a look at the hovering creatures and says, "You have solitary wasps. Look at all the holes. They're really difficult to get rid of."

Ernie's* also a nice guy. I put him in touch with a man I know who keeps bees, since he often has to call on local beekeepers to come remove honeybee colonies, since by law he's not allowed to exterminate them. Ernie says he'll take care of it all for $100, plus $25 if a follow-up visit is needed. "But it shouldn't be."

Now I'm confused. Bert* seems very confident, and wants to charge me a total of $743 over the next nine or ten months, and Ernie* says it'll be difficult but tells me $125 over two applications will take care of it.

And ground bees or solitary wasps or ground-nesting hornets, what do I have?

So I take up the Yellow Pages and call yet another exterminator. I put in my name, and a couple hours later, I get a call from Grover*. He's coming late tomorrow morning. But over the phone, he figures it won't run more than $200 to deal with it all.

However. The kitchen ants, Pharaoh, suger, or little black, we wants dem gone. Ditto their carpenter cousins. But the winged critters in the vegetable garden-- I need to find out exactly what they are.

Because when I look up "ground bees" and "solitary wasps" on the Internet, I've told a) they're harmless to people; neither of them sting unless you step on them or bottle them in your hand; b) they're essential for pollination and to keep down harmful insects; and c) one should let them alone and coexist with them.

Okay . . . but what if I do have some kind of nasty, vicious hornet out there?

Maybe I should get my friend who keeps bees to come take a look, before I do anything at all.

Commitment

Looks like I've decided to adopt Lester, the 97-year-old piano.

I had a long phone conversation with the local piano tuner last Tuesday evening. Having read the negative opinion of the tech from Jersey and listened to the video of the piano being played that I posted here on my blog, his revised opinion is that the Jersey boy just wants to sell his own used pianos.

And that assuming that I'm not looking to play pounding Lizst all day and all night or make commercial recordings or prepare myself to play in major concerts halls, he gives it that the instrument in question will suit me just fine. Cracked bridge in the bass? No, it'd be making awful noises if so. Slipping pins and imminent failure in the pinblock? It'd be excruciatingly out of intonation if that were the case. No, silly thing just needs tuned.

So, I've arranged with a piano mover to meet me at the church late this coming Wednesday afternoon. They'll bring it up and move it in to the Sow's Ear.

And the piano will probably sound like a squealing pig for a fortnight or more, because it has to settle into the climate here at the house before it can be tuned.

Before it comes, I still have to remove the baseboard from the wall it's going against. No point in pushing that behemoth out of the way more than once. And take down my concert posters, which will now have to be hung higher.

Oh, yes, and sweet talk my neighbors (the ones with the awful aluminum siding) into letting the piano movers cross their yard if that's the only way they can get a straight shot at my front steps.

(I do hope the plywood bedboard in the guest room is big enough to cover next door's grass . . . I'd hate to have to go to Lowe's and buy a new sheet just for this!)

See Sharp or Be Flat?

Here's the next installment of the continuing saga of the 1911 Lester piano I'm contemplating giving a good home to (I keep this up, Jeannie and Aaron might question whether this is truly a house blog anymore!):

Last night, I sent a link to my last post, along with a filled-in worksheet, to a piano tech in New Jersey. I made the virtual acquaintance of this person through purchasing a used piano buying guide from him on eBay Thursday night ($2.99 Buy It Now). The price included follow-up advice, so I took advantage of it.

Early this morning, his reply came in. He strongly recommended I not take this piano on, even as a giveaway. The buzz in the one key, he wrote, is a hard damper felt. The lost motion in some others would be missing felts or loose jacks coming unglued. The bottoming out in the bass notes is likely a cracked bass bridge. The same, he said, was likely true for the treble bridge. The fact that the pinblock had been doped (chemically treated to make the wood swell to keep the tuning pins in snugly) was a bad sign that the pins are probably still loose.

It would, he said, cost around $6,600 to regulate and repair the piano to playable condition (including replacing the pinblock to the tune of $4,700). And even then, I'd have a 97 year old piano with mostly 97 year old parts. And that doesn't include moving and tuning.

"Lester pianos," the Jersey tech wrote, "are quite good – but the age and condition is working against this one." I could, he said, buy something much younger and better for a lot cheaper.

With this advice in mind, I've done some objective thinking on the subject.

I'm not dead set on acquiring this particular piano. It just happens to be available. If it doesn't work well enough, it'd be taking up the space of another that'd suit me better.

Late this afternoon, then, I called back the local tech/piano tuner to see about getting a second opinion. I've forwarded him all the info I sent the tech in New Jersey, including the NJ tech's reply, and asked him to quote me a fee to meet me at the church to look at it himself.

But the local guy is a lot more optimistic. He feels the tech in New Jersey has to be painstakingly conservative on the advice he gives me, in order to cover his rear. That is, any one symptom can have any number of causes, more or less critical. Someone giving advice via email has to assume the worst. The local tuner, being able to see the instrument in person, can afford to be more optimistic.

So we'll see. If the local tuner/tech tells me it'd cost me too much to fix, forget it. Hey, if I want to sink thousands of dollars into a handsome piece of woodwork, I'd rather go broke buying the 1698 Jacobean tridarn dresser an antique dealer up the Beaver River has for sale.

And of course if the piano's an outright junker, then it's for the dump. In that case, I'd like to get with the church to see about their allowing me to salvage the wooden casework for reuse in a new project. And try to convince them to recycle the harp and wires and other metal parts. There's a metal scrap yard just up the Ohio River from me I could refer them to.

But all this is contingency thinking. I'll wait to hear what the local tuner/tech says.