Phil's living room

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phil
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Re: Phil's living room

Post by phil »

so as I grunt along at a snails pace here are a few newer pics.
previously I pulled all the trim and stripped it , roughly stripped the window frames and some of the window parts. opened all the walls, insulated , re- boarded with soundproofing drywall. pulled off the ceiling tiles and re-drywalled the ceiling. pulled the carpets , found neat cork, took that out to find the original floors already sanded and scratched like someone used a shovel across the grain and left deep scratches everywhere. I drum sanded and rented the edger, so the floors are now roughed out to about 60 grit. Im doing the filling now, then Ill rent the pad sander to make them a bit smoother before refinishing.
you cna see in the top pic a "shiner" you dont want to see these in a finished floor. that will be driven in and puttied.

the bottom pic shows a sap line. these leave indents if not filled. I scrape them out and fill them too. - or most of them.
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Last edited by phil on Thu Jul 27, 2017 5:55 pm, edited 2 times in total.

phil
Has many leather bound books
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Re: Phil's living room

Post by phil »

a few more..
I have 2 colors of putty going, in larger areas I loosely combine them or if the floor is lighter or darker I choose. if they are too light in the finishing stages I can darken some with a pen after the dainish oil and before the poly.

im driving them in , picking out any blackened wood and filling them after surrounding the repair with tape. since there are so many it takes a while.

If I put a little oil on the floor I can get some idea of how well the color matches. I might not have it exact, this is harder to do than you first think because you really can't compare it to the color of raw wood.

you can see some bruises from furniture and some lines scratched in when they were cutting stuff on the floor with a knife. some of the defects Ill hand scrape. there are some lines where the cork joined and the wood is a bit blackened nearby leaving a line. the black marks dont show too much until the finish is applied.
in the second pic down with all the bruises, there are lots and lots of repaired holes and sap lines that I filled. keeping the repairs as small as possible is part of hiding the putty.. a commercial finisher wouldn't use tape and maybe that is a waste of time but I don't want more putty than I need. if the color is right these spots hide in to the floor, if the putty isn't right they all become very obvious so mixing the putty the right color is the most important part.

Ill see how well Ive done (or not) later when I put oil on and see it pop.

anyway Its coming.. its been a year since I started the room, but I do what I can when I can.. I'm hoping to get a finish on the floor in a couple weeks as I get a little time off.

if they are round holes I punch my tape using a fridge magnet as a backer. That's faster , but if they are unusual shapes I surround the repair and then fill it. if they shrink back I come back with another dab, but I try not to cover more area with putty than necessary.

eventually I may put wainscot up to eye level but I finish right to the floor and then put baseboards back. that way the edger can get closer to the wall and I had to remove them to strip all the paint anyway.

the door is temporary, just to keep the rest of the house clean. I might put a glass door to separate the 4x8 entrance way. I guess I didn't get a pic of that angle. the fire box is another project but it is patient.

in the bottom pic you can't see the nails but you see evidence by the black mark. I drive these down too and pick out the black spot and fill it, I dont want them to show after the final sanding. after a while you know where to put the punch to drive them in more in some cases those just leave a punch mark that I fill with my tape with a hole punched.
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Last edited by phil on Thu Jul 27, 2017 6:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

phil
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Re: Phil's living room

Post by phil »

i wanted to show a pic with some dainish oil on to show the color of the putty better. in the top pic between the darker wood and the lighter wood you can see where I have sanded and filled a 1/8" crack.. then I dabbed some putty to fix a spot where it shrunk a little and left a bubble hole.. in the lower pics you can see where the color didnt' match so I picked them out and put fresh putty to try again. in this case it isn't a finished floor I just put a few drops of oil on to see the putty color and get a rough idea what it'll look like. you can see a couple of those ones are face nailed and the nails weren't deep enough. what can happen if the putty isn't thick enough on top of the nail it can pop out later. better to get them down a bit deeper so the putty stays put. you can also see how the darkened area near the fill kind of surrounds the repair and makes it obvious as if it is circled with a pen, so its better to dig that damaged darkened wood out to make the repair show less.

by using Danish oil as part of the process, you can catch things like this and if they bug you you can still fix them. If you go straight to a clear finish you don't have the option to repair flaws you don't like but with the oil you can sand ans crape and fill and then just put more oil and continue. sometimes the oil makes sanding flaws show so you can fix those with a hand scraper and put more oil.

once I'm happy with the oil then Ill do three coats of poly. beyond that it can be scuff sanded and re-coated and repaired but I wouldn't drum sand this floor again. the T and G will come apart if it's any thinner.

I think this is a floor where if you called in commercial finishers they would say its too thin and wouldn't want this job, but it is repairable and that's what i wanted to show. It is a lot of work but I wouldn't lay a new floor over this one.
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Gothichome
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Re: Phil's living room

Post by Gothichome »

Phil, nice to see some pics to go with your technical descriptions.

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Lily left the valley
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Re: Phil's living room

Post by Lily left the valley »

Thanks for the write up and pics. I envy some of your tools! :mrgreen:

That room is really coming along nicely.

I love how you describe your fire box as "patient".

I think posts like this go to show that persistence pays off when combined with some know how. When you detail things out like this, it makes it all the easier for anyone else to try to do the same even if they lack the experience you have.

Nice work! :thumbup:
--Proud member of the Industrious Cheapskate Club
--Currently pondering ways to encourage thoughtful restovation and discourage mindless renovation.

phil
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Re: Phil's living room

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Thanks Lily Ive seen other posts where people gave up because they saw a few nails, and I spoke to my neighbor who bought new floors after talking to a finisher who said it would tear up the floor and destroy his machine which was probably just BS. We had some previous posts where people considered paint or didn't feel they could do a good job due to some face nailing and such. As long as most of the wood is there the putty does a lot to hide it.

the time taken to fix all these nail holes is huge though. I spent a weekend and got about the width of the room and about 8 feet or so. a lot of that is picking out the sap lines and filling those too. they tend to leave a little indent and collect paint and what not so I scrape them out and fill them too. after two days it's enough kneeling but I'll persevere.

I'll use a hand scraper to take out some o the marks like where furniture was dragged and the darkened lines but that isnt' deep. You can see the black lines running across grain. some of that is deep damage caused by some PO removing flooring with a shovel or something. they had scratched the floor all over like that. the scrape marks sanded out but what doesnt' sand out is the darkened blackish lines where because the surface was scratched water got into the floor and stained it. That damage goes deep into the wood so it can only be treated or I can ignore it. If it stands out too much Ill darken my finishing coats to subdue the effect but I'll see it when I get the oil down and than I can see how dark it really is. As you now see the blackened lines in the bare wood it's not that noticeable but those two darkened lines that don't appear to be that much, they will pop and be more prevalent once a finish is applied.

no real expensive tools required. the drum sander, edger and sander I rent from Home despair. a gallon of danish oil and a couple gallons of poly will be the other expense. I think its worth the cost and it's a bit like knitting a quilt or doing some other thing you enjoy it isn't always about the cash vs time. its about enjoying the job and hopefully enjoying the result for years to come long after the time spent is forgotten.
The floor is reasonably tight so I will only fill any cracks between boards in a few places. that I'll leave room for it to do it's natural movements over time.

weird way to tighten the nails up but it doesn't squeak much at all anymore. after the putty I will rent a big vibrating pad sander. that one is easy as it vibrates and you can move it in all directions. that will smooth it out and knock down my putty lumps, then if it's shrunk too far anywhere, that creates a hollow, I can touch that up and knock it back with a little hand sanding. overfilling helps it not do that.

I got friendly with the guy at HD and he used to refinish floors so last time I was there I gave him some compliments and told him his advice really helped.
I try to keep a few questions in mind if I buy stuff or do the rentals. He said don't sand too far or burnish it. you can run 3M pads after sanding to close up the pores but that stops the oil soaking in so Ill stop at about 100 grit to allow the oil to penetrate and bite in a bit deeper. this helps the poly latch into the wood.

one funny thing about this floor is that the side towards the wall and away from the cow trail is a bit different wood. One side seems to be all darker wood and the rest is lighter. You can hardly see it now but it was more obvious when I first saw it with a finish on it. I was wondering if someone re-laid half the flooring but I think it might just be that they went into a different batch after they started laying it. once it's finished with a rug and furniture in there it will look acceptable and I wont' hide that it isn't a new floor and that's Ok it'll just be the best I can do without making the job too crazy.

phil
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Re: Phil's living room

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finally finally finished my putty and rented the pad sander ran through 60, 80,100 grit with that... now putting down the first coat of danish oil.. it's coming . I can see a lot of old bruises and marks that just could not be sanded out so it'll have some character but it'll be smooth at least. Im so glad to move on to other things that actually change as I work on them, doing the putty was such a long job. it was so littered with nail holes and now they are pretty well hidden.. I even dug out every sap line and filled them.. the filling took many many hours.

this pic is after the filling and before pad sanding. I didn't take a pic of the machine but it is about a 18x 14" pad and you put an inch thick 3M pad and sticky back sandpaper stuck to that. then it vibrates.. it's a very heavy machine, Lifting it it up the front steps by myself was a challenge. I'll follow up with pics of it after final sanding.

In this pic it has only been drum sanded and filled. pretty much every nail showed before the filling process. Ill try to remember to get a pic tonight of it now it's been pad sanded with the oil being applied. i just do a foot or so and let it dwell and soak in. it's supposed to dwell half an hour but sometimes I leave it and go back and wet it again if it soaks up for an hour or so its ok.
Then I can dry it down and move to another foot wide strip.

subsequent coats wont' penetrate as much. On the first coat it pretty much all soaks in. I added some mineral spirits to help it penetrate. the more it soaks up the more it penetrates, the harder it makes the surface. I usually try to do about three coats a week or so apart to get as much to penetrate as possible. then the poly can go down after.


Phil
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Lily left the valley
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Re: Phil's living room

Post by Lily left the valley »

Thanks for the update.

Coming along, and looking forward to the next images when you have time.
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--Currently pondering ways to encourage thoughtful restovation and discourage mindless renovation.

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Gothichome
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Re: Phil's living room

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Nice looking floors Phil, those dark spots, deep stains?

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oaktree
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Re: Phil's living room

Post by oaktree »

It is looking really great, phil!!!!
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