2nd Coat down!

... and I think it's looking pretty good!

Getting down to the nitty-gritty

After a weekend of sanding, cleaning, and applying the first layer of finish, the floor refinishing project is nearing completion. Friday was a day spent frantically ensuring that I had all the materials for an early start on Saturday. Matt, who has worked with Jack in the past, is a professional contractor who has, in the past, specialized in flooring. He has refinished many floors and was an *awesome* source of both help and knowledge. On a previous Sunday, he helped me create my materials list, and also gave me an overview of how the project should proceed. He showed up this Saturday morning ready to go, and fortunately my preparations had gotten the house ready to begin.

Saturday morning, at 6:15, I swung over to Jack's with Becky. We loaded up into his pickup and headed to home depot to pick up the sander. The sander rental is 28$ for four hours, or 40$ for 24 hours. Needless to say, we went with the 24 hour option. We also purchased all the necessary sandpaper for the rental sander (the most expensive part of the project, 6$ a sheet and we got 30 sheets). I had already purchased a whole boatload of other necessary items, including brushes, mineral spirits, rags, hand sandpaper, more mineral spirits, and a few other items.

Then, we got right to it (right after a minor scare with someone falling through the hole where the central air return grille had been removed to allow sanding access to the floor around its rim). Matt handled the big rented sander and Jack and I started doing some detail sanding of the edges and corners with palm sanders. The big rental sander started up with 36 grit sandpaper attached, which looked almost like small gravel attached to paper. It really took the old finish off the floors pretty quickly!



I wanted the floor to keep a lot of its character, though. I wanted it to look beautiful, but *OLD* and beautiful, which is kind of the general theme I am shooting for with the whole decor. This meant that I didn't want to sand too much of the "character" off of the floor, I really just wanted to get it protected and sort of uniformly covered with finish.

The floor underneath what had been the bathroom wall was interesting. As it had obviously not been sanded during the last floor refinishing, it was sort of a ridge that needed some serious hand sanding to flatten. Here it is after a good bit of effort (you can hardly tell!). You can also see the dust that covered everything during the sanding process.


Here is a shot of the living room during a change of sandpaper:


And a shot from the living room to the bathroom (that's my repair job in the hallway, again looking pretty good for an amateur, I think!).


After the sanding was done, we had to inspect the floor for sander marks and blemishes. We did a pretty careful inspection and deemed that the floor would be ready for Sunday's cleaning and finishing effort. Then, we drank beer.

Sunday started a little slowly due to the beer drinking previously mentioned, however the workload left was much smaller and we had more help as Becky and Sylvia (Matt's girlfriend and an expert at applying finish) were able to join us. After some final detail sanding, we vacuumed the floor as clean as possible and began a wipe down of the entire surface with mineral spirits, always pulling any dirt or grit towards the door we would eventually be exiting from. No shoes were worn in the house from this point on! Here is a pic of what the floor looked like after we had wiped it down:


Once the floor was clean, it was time to apply the poly. This was pretty simple: apply a thin coat, using brush strokes with the grain. We joined together as a team and were able to accomplish this pretty quickly, and we finished the first coat at about 11 AM on Sunday. Thank goodness, too, because this gave the finish (a semi-gloss polyurethane) time to dry before the cold snap hit later that night! The last picture in this post is a pic of the "team" finishing up the first coat in the living room, and I was struck by its similarity to an impressionist painting by Gustave Caillebotte called The Floor Scrapers, which I stumbled across in my Internet research for tips on refinishing old hardwood floors:





Have a merry, merry Christmas!

There's a hole in the floor!

A lot has happened with the house since my last post, and I am not going to backtrack in detail. Suffice to say that I have learned all about climbing under the house, sweating pipe, the use of Bunny bread in a plumber's world, and a host of other fun tips from checking for gas leaks to using a rotary tool on plaster (which works very well, by the way).

This blog entry, however, is going to focus on the prep work for the big upcoming project this weekend: wood floor refinishing! This weekend, with the help of Matt and Sylvia, and possibly Jack, Becky, and maybe even Tork, I am going to be like Daniel-san and sand-the-floor.

A couple of months ago I was wrestling with ideas for renovating the bathroom. Originally, the bathroom came with a beautiful claw-foot tub that was too big to fit properly between the walls. This resulted in the back of the bathtub actually poking a hole in the sheetrock on one side of the bathroom. This bathroom was also home to the worst-placed floor furnace of all time. The floor furnace was actually installed in the bathroom doorway! Add to that it was ridiculously cramped, poorly placed, and there was no place to store towels or TP. Obviously, something needed to be done here.

So, with the help of my good friend Jack (who I have now promised is to be a guest of honor at any housewarming party), I tore out a wall between the bathroom and the master bedroom.


Then, I took out the floor furnace. Man that thing was big! It looked like a diesel engine.


Then we built a frame in the hole to support the new floorboards.

After that, I had to remove some of the floorboards so that the repair job wouldn't look, well, like a repair job. This involved some interesting cutting and chiselling to "stagger" the end-seams. In the process, I determined that the floor is, for the most part, in great, solid condition.


I also took out a couple of boards towards the middle of the bathroom to repair the hole where the old toilet was, and one that was cut prematurely for the new toilet position that didn't quite work.
The flooring was held in place with ancient, humongous square-cut nails. Chiselling around these for a straight seam was one of the most challenging parts of this operation.



Jack had brought over some flooring that looked like it would be a perfect fit, if not a match, from his house. The boards he brought were pretty dirty (they had been under water during floods several times in the last 100 years) and in the end did not fit as well as we had hoped. The wood was just a little too narrow, and with so many replacement boards adjacent to each other, the gaps were just too big.


So I went to Ricca's hardware, which is a really neat old place that has lots of old wood doors, mantles, wrought iron, clawfoot tubs, and other antique architectural features. Thay where i spoke with Jim, their carpenter, about replacing my flooring. I had brought a sample of what I needed and we determined that he would be able to help by taking some flooring he had that was larger than what I needed and planing, trimming, and routing it. The price was about 4$ a linear foot. I needed about 38 feet, and I tipped him for helping me measure and prepare the boards.



The wood turned out to be a much better fit! There is a little technique to getting these tongue-and-groove boards to fit during the repair process, but with some instruction from Matt and a number of other sources, I got through it. And, color-wise, it seems a perfect match. All in all, it seems as though we are going to be ready for this weekend!

O Little Town of Metairie...

Crazy week! It snowed here, as much as I have ever seen in southern Louisiana. When I woke up yesterday, everything was grey and rainy. I performed my usual morning routine, tromped off the the car, and began my daily commute. I was on I-10 headed out to Metairie from uptown, when what to my wondering eyes should appear but snow, falling from the sky! It was hesitant at first, snowflakes drifting down between big fat raindrops, but as i continued driving I noticed that the rain pretty much disappeared and snow was actually falling in pretty copious amounts (for our gentle southern climate, at least!)

Several hours and a number of inches of snow later, the city was coated in snow. A couple of hours after that, there wasn't much snow to be seen anywhere as the sun came back out to reclaim its territory. What a neat day.

Here are some pics! I love the ones where you can see snow in the palm trees!

Minnesota Marriage Madness

Well, it's been forever since I posted, and a lot of fun stuff has happened in between my last post and now. I will probably break this post into a few readable sections to keep it from turning into a novel. Some of my experiences have been positive and some, not as much. This first section is going to be about the big trip to Minnesota, which has been one of the highlights of the summer.
The occasion for this trip was the marriage of Timmy and Jenna, two of my absolute favorite people on earth. It was a very small wedding, but Becky and I were joined by Gary, Torkelson, and Dawn (along with some of Timmy and Jenna's family) to celebrate it in style. It was a great trip all around, and a great experience to share with a group of friends that I enjoy immensely.



Becky and I stayed in the Marquette hotel in downtown Minneapolis, and we were quite pleased with the accommodations. From the 42 inch LCD television, to the full glass / stone shower, to the functional room furniture, we found our stay there to be very enjoyable. It was also nicely located in easy walking distance from the Hilton and the Marriott, where other members of our party were staying. And cheap on priceline.com.

On our first night, Timmy's dad bought the entire wedding party dinner at Great Waters brewing company, where the HefeWeizen tastes like bananas! Actually, it is a brewery/restaurant combination with a nice selection of both food and beers, and we fully enjoyed our meal. Becky and I were seated across from Jenna's mother, and we had a delightful time. Torkelson seemed to be the life of the party, cutting up with some of Timmy's more colorful family members by trading Boudreaux and Thibodeaux jokes and calling various members of the restaurant staff "Alfonse."
From there, the family members headed home and the friends stayed out at the bar across the street, drinking pitchers of beer and having a wonderful time catching up. Since the restaurant and the bar where we ended up were located in St. Paul, we called it a night and headed back across the river to our respective hotels in Minneapolis to prepare for the big day.

Friday was wedding day. We headed over to the most awesome breakfast restaurant in the world, called Hell's Kitchen. We were so impressed with the place we would eat there for every single breakfast during our stay (three days in a row). Our first meal there saw 5 completely different orders, and every person loved every item served. Buffalo sausage, porridge, huevos rancheros, vegetable frittatas, lemon-ricotta pancakes, it was all devilishly good. They make their own ridiculously good peanut butter (for toast, of course) and blackberry-lemon preserves. Man, that place is outstanding. There were trees inside filled with stuffed crows, and artwork by Gary Larson (all of the "Hell" related Far Side comics) and Steadman (who illustrated a number of Hunter Thompson's works including F&L in Las Vegas). Here's their URL: http://www.hellskitcheninc.com/

After an entertaining day in Minneapolis involving sushi, video games, and mimosas, we headed to the Conservatory/Gardens where the wedding took place. The grounds were beautiful, the ceremony was short and poignant, and the photographs really weren't too arduous. The meal afterward was a success, with delicious walleye AND steak and cake and chocolate truffles. mmmmm. Afterwards, we headed downtown Minneapolis to continue the drinking late into the night (or what passes for late there... the bars DO shut down at 2). We found a bar that was ideally laid out for us, with sidewalk tables and such, but Timmy hadn't brought his wallet along due to being in his fly-ass wedding tux pants, so the server had the audacity to refuse him service on his wedding night. Seriously, she walked out onto the patio and confiscated his beer right out of his hand! Unbleievable. Torkelson went on the wallet rescue mission and returned with proper ID for Timmy, so the drinking continued. A good time was had by all. The following day, we held a disc golf tournament for the newly wedded couple, but that, as they say, is another story.

Lazy Summer

Lately we've been...not slacking exactly, but definitely relaxing the pace of work on the house. Two weekends ago, Mike and Jack were forced one afternoon to discontinue work on the shed roof due to it being so hot that the roofing tar was melting! At the same time, I was indoors working on replacing the electrical outlets. After one shocking (get it?) experience, I turned off the electricity for safety's sake, and was thereafter working sans-A/C. Mike's mom and dad came over and installed the awesome custom over-the-stove cupboard that they built and stained to match the rest of the wood in the kitchen. This piece of cabinetry offers not only beauty, but dual functionality: it gives the range hood something to attach to, and handily stores both Tupperware and Ramen Noodles.

Last week we had a great visit with my sister Sara and brother-in-law Brad, who have been remodeling their home from top to bottom for a few years now. I think Mike was inspired by their basement bar area, and he may have filed away some ideas for his own future clubhouse/gameroom. It's been mentioned before, but bears repeating: one of the most rewarding results of working on a house is developing the ability to appreciate craftsmanship in other people's spaces.

Yesterday I was struck down by a case of the summer sniffles. I tried to stay in bed, but soon tired of telenovelas and Tylenol Cold, so in the afternoon I headed over to finish grouting the tub. Although the heat was punishing, I pushed onward (buoyed by a grape-tangerine Sno-Ball halfway through) and finished that tedious chore. I wisely decided against working on any electrical projects while alone, and instead had another Sno-Ball. Just kidding. I had two more Sno-Balls. Seriously, it was very hot.

I don't want to start listing all that is left to do on the rental, because I'm afraid it will be a longer list that I'd like. But we are really, really close.

But what about that linoleum?

Well, some time back I posted a picture of the bedroom floor on the rental side. It was a lovely green basket weave, but it wasn't really in good enough shape to save as there were extensive holes and water damage to the tiles. I'll post the picture again for reference:

Because of the terrible state of the linoleum (and, really, a desire to completely revamp the space) I decided it had to go. With a lot of effort and a couple of trips to the dump I managed to get the tiles removed from the floor and off the premises. I am kicking myself for not getting a picture of the floor when it was in this tile-less state, but it was not pretty. The old hardwood floors were completely covered with black glue and maybe some kind of black paper which was NOT coming off. It was nice for a while because it formed a space on which we were not afraid to stack tools, ladders, tile, paint, whatever because it was in such bad condition. At that point, I was pricing out carpet and engineered bamboo flooring thinking there was no WAY this floor was ever coming back.

Around this time, my sister Claire came into town for her friend Chantal's birthday (they celebrated at Jazz Fest, woohoo!) She mentioned that her friend's house (where they were staying) had some similar flooring issues. I took a break from working to go pick her up there, and she suggested that I come in to look at some pictures of how bad those floors had been and to get a first hand look at what refinishing had done for them.

Well, while I saw some "before" pictures of floors that were in pretty bad shape, and I noted that the "after" floors looked very nice, I was still not totally convinced. I was positive that the floors back at my place were in worse shape, and that there was no hope of successfully restoring them. However, at urging from just about everyone I know, I decided it couldn't hurt to have an expert look at them. An old friend from my college days does a lot of work in the construction / renovating industry down here, and through him I got the number for Vincent Hardwood Floors. That number is (504) 272-5588 and I highly recommend you call Vincent if you need any work done in this area. His crew was professional, friendly, and fast. And the results were AMAZING:

Boy, did that room get a face lift. Here are a couple more:

Thank you Vincent!!!

The Artist's Touch

So the past few weeks have been a true whirlwind. The renovation has been focused almost exclusively on the rental unit, because getting that income stream in will free up funds for developing the larger unit where we plan to live. A number of rather ambitious projects on the rental side are nearing completion, but none has had the amazing visual impact of the sheetrock repair and painting. And, while a number of helping hands were involved in the painting, for sheer technique, perseverance, and eye for detail, no one beats my Mom.

Unfortunately, I didn't really get too much of a chance to photograph the walls and ceiling before we painted. During the busiest time it seems as though I really forgot to take many pictures at all, but I can tell you for several weekends running both Mom and Dad were down here in lending all of their considerable painting expertise to this effort.

Mom and Dad really make a pretty incredible painting team. Dad generally does the "heavy lifting" with paint rollers and long poles and such, while Mom, with her fine eye for detail and her steady hand does the cutting in and woodwork (basically, the rest).

Just for spacing purposes, I threw the pictures of all of the nice edging throughout this post. This apartment used to be peach, deep red, and a wacky deep blue green all throughout. The new paint job makes *ME* want to live there.

These pictures really don't do justice to this paint job. The improvement is staggering over what was there previously, and I am still amazed at how nice it looks every time I walk in.

The Man with a Plan (and a chainsaw)

One of the most important sources of help in the process of both purchasing and renovating this property has been my parents. They have been amazingly supportive in almost every manner conceivable, from financial assistance to blood, sweat, tears, and an amazing amount of time and effort. They have driven here from Lafayette nearly every weekend since this project commenced, and that fact that I have not yet highlighted what they have helped me accomplish is really a bit embarrassing. To give you an idea of how incredibly generous they have been with their time, I can tell you that they were both down here on both Mother's Day and Father's Day this year. Thank you, thank you, thank you Mom and Dad for being so supportive, generous, and wonderfully helpful.

One of the first things Dad did when he donned his working overalls was to remove the Japanese magnolia from the front of the house. The tree was sure to bloom beautifully, and offered some shade to the porch, so the decision to remove it was a difficult one. However, the fact that it was leaning against the house was an invitation to disaster; termites, moisture, and/or wind-related damage were eventually going to result from its position, and pruning it was simply not going to alleviate those risks. Furthermore, the thing was planted directly over the water main which supplies the house with water from the street, and I was afraid that damage to this pipe from its roots was inevitable.

So, the weekend after the first big plumbing push, Dad drives down from Lafayette and starts to tackle some outdoor projects, chief among these being (so he thinks) the removal of the tree. It was a Friday, and he was able to come in while I was still at work. I called him from the office early afternoon to see how it was coming along, and he said with the most casual emphasis, "Well, the tree's down." Not half an hour later I got an email from Jean-Paul, who had driven by to retrieve his "SOLD!" sign. He was *very* complimentary of the new look, so I was dying to get home to see it. When I got home, here is what I saw. AWESOME!





The difference is, in fact, pretty amazing, as the gingerbread and front porch are, in my opinion, quite nice looking. With a new pain job (somewhere down on the list of things I plan to do) it's going to sing. Here's another, more recent picture after a little yardwork and the addition of the ficus trees from my old apartment.

The other big outdoor project Dad tackled that weekend was the fence in the backyard. To be perfectly honest, that fence is somewhat of an enigma. It was built using a large amount of treated lumber (read: expensive), but its design leaves a *lot* to be desired. The fence was built in odd sections, with a small, 1.5-2 ft section at the bottom and maybe a 6 ft. section on top. The fenceposts were treated 4x4's, which with age have leaned, warped, and in some cases fallen down.


There was a big pile of lumber in the backyard that had apparently come from the downed sections of the fence, and Dad was able to use these to basically reconstruct the fence along the entire back property line. He even did battle with banana plants and helped reconstruct the neighbor's shed in the process, and I think even he was a bit surprised at how much effort this fence took compared to the earlier tree removal.



I am embarrassed to say, I can't find a picture of the completed fence. Here's a shot of the work in progress; I promise to add a picture of the finished work soon.

The hiatus is over!

Well, there's nothing like buying a house to make you too busy or too tired all the time to write blog entries, but believe it or not, I have received a couple of requests for information on the renovation. That's right, people asked for more blog entries! And to be perfectly honest, I am at a great point to resume blogging here because I am so proud of how the renovations are turning out.

I'll be posting a series of before / after picture entries today (or just "after" if I can't find a good "before" image). Please, please feel free to comment as Becky and I love the feedback. Thanks for your interest and for visiting.

Kaufman

Picture Post

Happy Mother's Day! Here's some photos for mom:

That's the old linoleum tile that was in the bedroom of the rental. I was pretty excited about cleaning it up and refurbishing it. What a fantastic green basket weave pattern! But Mike vetoed that in favor of finishing the pine wood floor boards underneath. To each his own!

This was the old floor of the closet in the rental side. I'd like to meet the design mastermind who chose all these tiles. But a little water damage rots out the subfloor, and people have a kneejerk reaction to put down a sturdy false floor:

I guess that's better. Check out the leopard wall!

No after photos for that spotty sheetrock yet.

Here's the new tile in the bathroom.

Mike's working hard here to get the grout in. Color: Haystack. Outcome: Awesome.

Feast your eyes on some during and after ceiling repair work.





That's some quality sheetrock floating. Nice work Mike and Mrs. Kaufman!

Unfortuantely, there are no current photos documenting the backyard fence makeover. But let me tell you, Mike's dad is a miracle worker with recycled treated lumber.

Now if only we could get rid of the lingering sewer gas stench...