Slog Ever, Slog On?

The 40-grit sandpaper arrived today.  I cut a couple of pieces to fit my Black & Decker mouse sander and tried it on one of my hard yellow pine stair treads.

It works, sort of.  At least, it gets the tippy-top layer off.  The dirty scratches in the recessed grain, not so much.

Now, I'm not looking to have these floors mint-perfect.  I mean, the staple holes are part of the house's history, right?  But I'd like to get the worst of the dirt out, so the grain will actually shine through under the shellac.

I've been online to see if anybody can recommend a small hand-held electric sander that might have a little more horsepower than the B&D.  No luck.  Looks like I'm just going to have to cut a lot of hook-and-loop sheets and go at it.

And at it.

And at it.

And at it.

And at it.

And at it . . .

And About Time, Too

Yes, I know it's late. Or early. Whichever. But at about 11:45 last night I finally pulled myself away from the computer and got downstairs to finish stripping the 2nd floor hall.

Ran through the last of my current stock of Western Wood Doctor refinisher doing so: that's ok, I have more on order.

The floor as stripped also looks a little blotchy. That's ok, too: I have to give it a moderate sanding and that'll even it out.

Discovered something interesting as I worked. Remember that teal blue distemper that apparently was the original color on the plaster walls? I know they-- probably the original owners back in the 1910s-- got it on the woodwork. Well, apparently they also slopped it on the floors, too.

Anyway, this stage of the work is done. Hey, I got the Project Tracker to prove it! What's next?

Well, there are all those cracks and gaps to be filled. The best material for that will come from the leftover T&G floorboards they used to block in around the bedroom door. My idea is to pry them off, slice off the groove part, then put them back up. Oh, yes. And then take my handy-dandy rubber mallet and slam the slivers into the cracks.

That is, if I can work out how wide they ought to be . . . and how to get them properly tapered, where needed . . .

I'll deal with that later. But not too much later-- I go in for my surgery in less than three weeks and whatever I get done before then is what I get to look at for two weeks, more or less. With no way to do anything about it.

I Have No Business Posting at This Hour

. . . But I had to. Because I actually got some work done. For the first time since last August.

Hall closet floor Before

Hall closet floor After

Devoted this (yesterday?) evening and into the wee hours getting back to stripping the old shellac and miscellaneous careless paint spills off my 2nd floor hall floor. Denatured ethyl alcohol, steel wool, and a rag to get it started, heat gun with the scraper to go after the stubborn hardened paint drips and smears, then the Howard Refinisher with more steel wool and rags (and a certain amount of elbow grease) to get rid of the loosened paint and the rest of the shellac finish.

Yeah, I'm a little lightheaded by now. Yes, I raised the window while I was working, about 4" (Let's not get extreme; it's in the 20s out there). So yes, it's a good thing I got called in to teach in the morning, otherwise I'd still be at it and really messing up my brain cells.

But we have pictures. The new camera arrived today. I'm not 100% sure I like it that much. Focus either isn't that great or I haven't got the hang of it yet. But there are pictures.

The trim from Baird Brothers also got delivered, at 10:30 in the morning. I probably should have untaped the bundle and checked the shipment against my list, but I didn't. Didn't want the pieces cascading all over my front room floor. Better do it anyway.

But not tonight. I gotta teach third graders in the morning.

Stair and Floor Stripping Joy

These last three days or so I've been stripping wood you walk on. Not that I thought I could get my 2nd floor hall floor and the two flights of stairs stripped and refinished before my friend comes next Wednesday, but because if there's any-- any-- chance of getting my stair rail parts reinstalled before then, the surfaces next to them have to be done with the stripper. Ditto the trim in the 2nd floor hall. It would be really nice if I could get the jambs and heads back on my bedroom door so I can have a door, not to mention stops on all the doorways there. It's a phasing thing, right? I suppose some people can remount refinished trim and thereafter successfully go to work with solvents and caustic materials on the floor or stair treads next to it all, but I don't count myself in that lucky camp.

So I'm doing my best. After an all-nighter on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, I got the three bottom treads and risers on the stairs to the 3rd floor stripped, using my customary technique: Paint drips come off with the heat gun and a scraper, old finish put to rout with the Western Wood Doctor Refinisher with #0 steel wool (#1 if the old finish is stubborn).

But when I did a little of the floor at the foot of the steps, I saw that was backwards. The boards are such a spotty mess, it was hard to determine where exactly the paint drips were. So I took it the other way around: Refinisher first, then the heat gun to remove whatever was left, then a little clean refinisher to wipe off the heat-smeared residue.

Tackled more of the floor itself Wednesday evening. And got an inspiration: If the refinisher took off the old brown finish, what would denatured alcohol do for me?

Actually, it wasn't my own inspiration. I've been reading old shellac posts on Gary's blog at This Old Crackhouse and in one of them he said something about testing old finishes with alcohol to see if they are shellac. But I hadn't done it, because Everyone Says shellac is no good for floors, and turns white if water is spilled on it, and this floor has been exposed the last three years and nothing has fazed it. So it couldn't be shellac, correct?

Who cares? Try the alcohol anyway.

O rapture, o joy! The original finish from the 1910s was shellac! I could use the cheaper denatured alcohol for my initial finish and gunk removal, and save the $29 a gallon refinisher for Step 3, after the heat gun!

Not only is this more efficient, I bask in the satisfying glow that comes from feeling vindicated in my plans to lay down dissolved bug spit on my wood floor and stair treads!

Only worked on those parts of the hall floor that were next to trim I hope to get a coat or two of finish on by next week. Looks very promising, nevertheless. Even with the old carpet staple holes.

Followed up the performance with another all-nighter last night. Got the stairs down to the 1st floor entirely stripped, using the same procedure. And stuck pieces of cardboard on the treads with painter's tape to protect them until the new finish goes on.

That definitely isn't happening until after Labor Day. Before then I've got a friend to entertain and a Welsh-American convention to attend downtown. It's not a matter of slapping the new shellac down between now and next week: the floorboards and stair treads need sanding. Nothing radical, nothing that will obliterate their Character; no, just enough so one can walk across them in stocking feet and not pick up splinters in the attempt. And before that happens, I have to figure out what to do with all the big-headed nails some past owner drove in here and there, presumably to keep the boards from squeaking. I assume they're there for a purpose, and some sort of fastener is needed in these places. But I'd rather the current ones not remain to flaunt their 5/16" heads in my nice new finish. Besides, nail heads are killers on sandpaper.

Despite the uncertainty on what to do (dig the old nails out? Countersink them and fill the holes? And what to replace them with, if anything?), it's still nice to see all that old pine free from the grotty old finish. It's better than nice, it's a pleasure and a joy.

Errands, Exploration and Surprises

Today I went to Lowe's to buy 3" exterior grade screws to reattach my fallen fence, and 1/2" metal screws to rehang my back screen door, which is falling off its hinges.

I made another visit to Hamilton's Tools, for another nail puller-- the nasty 3" nails in some of the trim I'm taking down has proved impossible for me to get out with the nail puller and pliers I have.
And I stopped by the Home Depot, because for some reason Lowe's (nor WalMart, nor anyplace else I looked) doesn't carry #0 steel wool, which I need for use with the wood refinisher.

While there, I cruised their tile section, not expecting to find anything. I really want to replace the vinyl junk in my 1st floor stairhall with something on the lines of the old Medieval/19th century encaustic tile. It looks so good with dark woodwork and William Morris patterns. I have medievalist tendencies from way back, not to mention encaustic tile reminds me of north Oxford, which is another story. But it's brutally expensive, to the point you'd almost want to just use accent pieces set in metal inserts, so you could take them with you should you have to move.

But at the Home Depot today I found this:

Not the real thing, far from the real thing, but definitely working towards the effect of the real thing. And a dickens of a lot cheaper.

I'm glad I don't have to make a decision about my hallway floor for awhile. Because before I do, I'll have to fight the battle of You'll Never Be Able to Forget It's Not Real! vs. The Cost of the Real Stuff Is Way Out of Proportion for This Little House!

But it's nice to know this tile line exists, should Sense ultimately win out over Sensibility.

When I got home, I immediately set to work trying to fix the aluminum screen door, before I lost the daylight. I won't go into how that proceeded; it's done well enough to close properly again, even if it does need a stronger hand than mine to tighten the new screws in as well as they need to be. But I had the door propped open as I worked, and the dog and my eldest cat were in and out. After I got done, I went out in the back yard to make sure the kitty hadn't wandered into the neighbors' yard through the gap in the fence.

And then for the first time since I got home I noticed it: There is no longer a gap in the fence. Sometime this afternoon, my neighbor must've fixed it!

The panel is about an inch lower than it was, probably because the ends of the old 3" screws were in the way, and he didn't cut or remove them. Call the difference a souvenir of the Great Windstorm of 2008.

But I think I owe my neighbor a lawn mowing or two. Or something.

And does this mean I can take those long screws back to Lowe's?