Office Floor & New Look For 2013

Hey blog buddies! For those of you who visit my blog directly, you may have noticed that I changed my banner. I was getting tired of the old view of the half finished house exterior, and I quite liked how the "Best of The Web" banners turned out, so I made a similar, but larger one.

You can see how that looks by visiting the blog directly:
http://my1923foursquare.blogspot.ca/

The Office Floor Patch:

As many of you will know, my last project was the custom duct work, and relocation, of my Office's heating grate. The reason I did this was for a few different reasons (which is a repeat if you're a frequent reader): I was tired of having to walk over the heating grate in the doorway (since it's not the same level with the floor), it looked stupid (because the doorway was not there originally, and no builder would have originally put a floor grate right in a doorway), and lastly, because I wanted to add a second antique wall grate to match the living room.

I had already installed all my structural blocking last week, so patching the floor was just a matter of finding suitable boards to patch the opening.

Here's the underside:



Yeah, you're seeing that correctly, 4 sets of doubled 2x4s. I like overkill and I wanted a good, permanent repair.

I didn't have any old barn wood left, or other scraps, that were thick enough to match the old sub-floor, so I planed some old 2x4 and 2x6 scraps to fit. I actually had to use slightly different thicknesses to make it work.



The last part was to weed-through my very limited stash of original hardwood (salvaged from under the last stair tread in the hallway), and patch the hole. This was a bit of a pain, and it's not a perfect repair. I screwed up the repair in 2 places (the first board on the left should have been cut shorter to accommodate another piece of floor I had, and the two short boards next to each other in the middle should have been staggered - but I was trying to save as much wood as possible). I'm sure it will look better when it gets sanded.





In the hallway, I installed a temporary patch on the tile side. I'm pondering painting it grey to match, but it might not be worth the effort.



A few quick notes:

- The two short boards do stick out farther up, so those will get sanded down later.
- The reason for the rough, jagged, edge along the tile, is because I'll be cutting all the floor edge straight, and flush to the interior door jamb (later). Eventually, I'll be installing a Birch threshold along the bottom "jamb" area in this door, the living room door, and the dining room opening.

Lastly, to give you guys a bit more perspective, I just took this photo, which shows the entire area. The front door is next to my boots. You can see the floor patch in the doorway, and the new vent location. It really didn't move very far, but it makes a huge difference.



Next project: finishing the painting (mouldings) in the "L Room". I just went and bought the paint with my Mom yesterday.