The Secrets What Lie Beneath

I am going to talk about many things, including why I hate carpets and wood strip flooring. Primarily, this post is to be about why we DID NOT move in on New Years weekend and what we found under those carpets. When I began ripping up the carpet on Christmas weekend, I noticed merely a few stains on the underside of the carpet, but a veritable potpourri of stains and damage across the ¼” x 2” white oak strip flooring beneath. Over-watered houseplants, incontinent pet syndrome and perhaps a few domestic mushrooms plagued this floor. And it seemed that water was left standing in many places, thanks to the sponging traits of carpets and their mats, which had warped and shrank the meager wood parcels that someone once called flooring. I cannot think of how to salvage this, even if I wanted to, that is. This does not to mention the plethora of heavily rusted staples from a previous much longer standing carpet. I dread to consider how that one looked prior to its demise.

You see, the carpet that *I* tore up was relatively new. My guess would be about 6 months old, long enough to spill a few things and filter a few dozen cartons of cigarettes. It still smelled like stale tobacco smoke, yet showed few actual signs of wear. I imagine that when the POs [Previous Owners] decided on selling the house, they did away with the previous carpet as the first part of prepping the sale. This older carpet might have been 30 years old or more, but had left many signs of its trialsome life behind.

So after concluding that the oak strip flooring was unsalvageable, I decided to rely on the original floorboards. The bedrooms still had them, although one bedroom had its boards painted brown for reasons yet unknown. My parents had come to our rescue to help us out; being the seasoned homebuilders/renovators that they are, this was a MAJOR relief.

The original ¾” old growth quarter-sawn tongue & groove Douglas Fir boards told me a tale of woe surpassing that of the puny oak strips. First of all, being thin and narrow wood strips and NOT t&g, they require a plethora of nails to keep them in line. And when some PO decided that wet mopping a wood floor was a good idea, this army of nails decided to rust and leave corrosion stains through the floorboards in too many places (though not shown here). This means that no amount of sanding will remove the stains, though I suppose some bleaching might work. Well, the same continued for the incidents during the carpet years because as wood strips, the dust, silt, cleaners and water seep through each gap, and reside evermore underneath, spreading out with every step of the foot.

Not only that, but when those malevolent strips were first put in, the installers seemed to have used some pick axe in the poor flooring to nestle up the oak nice and snug (but not snug enough). These ½” deep holes are found about every 3 feet, and some of them, like you see here, had been sloppily mis-placed. We figured that the amount of time/effort/money it would take to redress those wrongs and apply an adequate finish to the dougfir, we might do better with a whole new floor on all accounts.

So after much deliberation and sleeping on it, we decided upon and found a great deal on ¾” x 5” pre-finished Ash, and it has a 50 yr guarantee on the finish. Here is a mock-up. We are quite pleased with how it compliments the baseboards. This will be our task this weekend, but it means that we should have the ceilings painted beforehand…AND WE HADN’T EVEN CONSIDERED COLORS YET! But thank goodness that this is Roxana’s area of expertise, color theorist as she is. I trust her explicitly.

Here you see a corner of our living room all bare a neekid. Just a little shellac here, paint there, and a floor to come soon, and voila! All this week has been about preparing to paint, which means we have to finish with the stripping, neutralize the residual stripper left behind and mask off everything else. To neutralize the stripper, we are scrubbing the wood and adjacent surfaces with mineral spirits, and then washing it all down with a 10% solution of cleaner (Simple Green, in our case) using nylon abrasive pads.

Perhaps I shall soon provide an addendum to my Chemi-Strip Primer, or more "advanced" techniques, I am such a profession now. Our next post will be about painting the ceiling and the colors chosen. Phew! (This is now an expression in our 2 ½ year old’s repertoire and a hoot to see). Until then...

HorrorShow! a Hack-n-Slash episode

In keeping with the spirits of this season, I shall update you on our progress with a tale of terror and woe. These tragic circumstances occurred merely a half-fortnight ago and came to light by the din of a 40-watt bulb in the wee-hours of the night. Though it has been some significant time since our last posting, believe me when I assure you that we had indeed gone forward with our plans as outlined in that correspondence. I sit here this Sunday morning typing to you one-handed as I console baby Marley from the aftereffects of this horror with my one-remaining arm.

As you might recall, we had hired someone to strip the paint/stains from the wood paneling and trim in the Living-Dining Rooms. He would then sand and finish the wood with a lacquer or similar shell prior to our moving into our first home. He would also rip out that nasty tobbacco-stained malodorous carpet, We would hope that the floor underneath would be manageably intact. He began his work two Thursdays afore, and after my initial review I was satisfied with his care and progress.

What you are looking at here is what I deemed as the initial paint-stripping pass, getting the bulk of the build-up off. We figure that there were ~6 layers of paint and one stain/shellac layer. I personallly have seen much worse (14 layers) but this would still be money well-spent, I thought to myself then. I had noticed a paper dust-mask on the wayside and concluded that this was no protection from the noxious chemicals from his remover, So I returned in the morning with a proper filtered mask and goggles for his safety. All was progressing as planned and we would move into our new-old and recently stripped (read as: 'formerly-pink') house as anticipated. I would not return to this scene until late 3 days thence, on the weekend. What I found by the dim lighting horrified and appalled me....

Squeee-eeee-eeeee-eeeeeee

As I walked into the room that night, I could see by the dim wash of streetlight coming through the windows what looked like wood chips on the Dining Room floor. Not the kind that you'd expect a woodchuck to chuck, but more like the fallings of a burly lumberjack's work. Large holes and missing edges had developed on our trim and panelling in our prized Dining Room. No ammount of sanding would mask these marrings. As I turned around, I could see the unmistakable signs of a flaying on our wainscoting. This bespoke not of careful nor methodical process but a maddened spirit seeking violent harm. This "hacking" debacle was evidenced throughout the room. Woodchips large and small were in exodus from their former places in the walls and trim. Looking around agast, my eyes happened upon the once-smart-looking picture rail, and it appeared absolutely shredded. It really looked as though the paint had been removed by chisle and hammer and a wild bear. All this happened over one day, what had initially started out so careful and proper, that I could see no connection between the two intervals of work. What had happened, indeed?

Apparently, feeling somewhat daunted by his task, our employ choose to hire two friends of his to assist, one of whom was "experienced" in paint-stripping for some 30 years, so he claimed. I took the day off work to speak with them directly Monday morning. On one occasion, the "friend" had the audacity to claim that all the wood was previously damaged like that, pointing to the location on the built-in bookshelf dividing the Living-Dining Room where the columns once were. After dismissing this and explaining about the once-present columns, I bent down to pick up a handfull of woodchips asserting that THEY did this. He merely shrugged and said that I shouldn't expect perfection. I expected them to not destroy the 200-year old wood, like the other fellow was careful not to do whom worked on the Living Room. He retorted with a claim that it could be easily fixed by a little extra sanding...that it was all ready to be sanded in fact. Not with all the paint and residue remaining I returned, and they would have to sand ~1/8" off everything to mask their carelessness. No way would I have them continue any more. The damage was done and extensive, and I am still mulling over how I will fix it. Needless to say, I dismissed them from this job (read as: fired) with nothing more than their initial payment. In a way it was a pity as (I believe) the fellow that we personally hired did an acceptable job and had he continued with the quality of his work all would have worked out fine. But he was responsible for the care of our house and failed in that regard to manage his 'friends' efforts.

So now the onus to complete this is on me prior to moving in. And I have learned in a personal way that (most) contractors will get away with everything they can without a watchful eye trained on them. Their motivation is to get it done, not get it done well (or right), as they won't be living with their work, staring at their mistakes and slipshod efforts every day.