Floors

I was just talking with a high school friend on Facebook the other day about our houses, and it dawned on me that I haven't talked about the flooring situation in the house yet.

When I first bought the house, everything was covered in this really awful, and super cheap quality laminate flooring. I wish I could say it lookedalright, but they did such a bad job of installing it, that several joints were cracked/broken, some pieces were loose, some had a foam backing and some didn't, and it also looks like they decided to install it little by little, with all kinds of transition points between doors. Top this off with the fact that I despise the stuff (even the higher quality stuff). It's usually made from high density particle board (basically cardboard), and sure it looks nice at first, but in my experience, it just doesn't last. I just hate how fake it looks, too.

The only other flooring material was some ugly grey tile in the main floor hallway and kitchen.

I assumed that since the house was very old, I likely had decent floors under it, otherwise I'd be installing new hardwood.

When I started poking around the house, I discovered that the upstairs had salvageable tongue and groove pine floors. The floors were mainly good in the bedroom areas, with the exception of a few small areas. The hallway, however, was another story.

I found the original floor when I was doing work in the master bedroom closet. You can kind of see what I mean:





Forgot to point this out, too, but the door that they had put in was so short (and awful) that I'd bump my head, so I returned the door to full size.



Anyhow, back to the floor. Under the laminate was some 1/4" plywood, nailed down with spiral nails, and under this was:



This prompted me to do tear apart the entire floor in the laundry room (the only area that wasn't floating laminate upstairs. The laundry room was actually just vinyl sticky tiles over the 1/4" plywood.





With a few pry bars, and some careful maneuvering, This is what was revealed!





The floor is FAR from perfect, but with a bit of patching and new paint, it's far better than a modern floor. The added benefit is that this is the original floor, so all the door casings and baseboards finish at this floor, instead of being partially buried around the edges. These pine floors are just nailed directly over the joists. This was a "cheap" way to do the flooring upstairs "back in the day". The main floor isn't done this way at all (more farther down).

The next area I did was the hallway (since it's small and it would likely be the "problem area".

Ok, since this is so hard to make out what's what, I'll try to describe each photo. This one is from the laundry room, facing the staircase wall. There used to be a floor register in that rectangular hole.



Slightly different view, pointing towards MB (bathroom is to the right).



From bathroom door looking back towards laundry room.



From MB door, looking towards laundry room.



Looking down at the edge of the MB door.



So yeah, some patching would definitely need to be done here.

Then I did the master bedroom(s):



This centre area is where there used to be two closets. The original outlines will become very apparent in the next photos.





Some lovely old linoleum...



Yay! Wood!









The vents both need to be completely redone (new tin/connections, etc):







Up to this point it was small easy sections. Then it got hard because I was prying-up full 4x8 sheets. This was labor intensive, and took a few days to do the whole room(s):



Eventually I had half the room done, and I was quite happy with the condition of the floors.











Some areas are worst than others...



At this halfway point I took a break, since I was still sliding stuff around (furniture/tools) on the other half.

Here's the other half pulled-up.



You can see a few of the 4x8 sheets on the edge of the photo, leaning against the door jamb.



A few small problem areas...







I will repaint the floors the same colour, since I like the current one. The match that I found was Behr's "Florence Brown".



And here are some of the 1000's of spiral nails I had to pull out.



This shows a bit of another view from the MB:



The main floor is another story entirely. It has a 1 1/8" thick diagonal pine (old barn board) sub-floor, then hardwood over this. I think the hardwood is maple or birch but it's too hard to see it anywhere, and it's extremely old and cruddy looking at the moment. The floor also doesn't look like it's stood the test of time too well. It's full of very wide gaps, which is unusual for a hardwood floor. I have a feeling I won't like what I see when I pull-off the laminate. From what I was able to see, they laid a 1/2" plywood down over the floor, but they didn't screw it down (or just barely), so at least I won't have all kinds of holes to deal with.

Another Smallish Update

I'm kind of feeling guilty for not posting more frequently, but most of the other "house blogs" that I follow aren't much more active, so I can't feel too bad. I'm hoping, however, that the followers on my blog will help keep me motivated. The "to-do" list I've got is currently pretty damn long...

Anyhow, today I was in a rather blah mood, and I didn't really feel like doing anything. It's hot, I'm exhausted from a long work week, and I haven't even showered yet (it's just after 4pm and I feel gross).

BUT, I decided to finally go ahead and rewire that large glass shade fixture, since I had nothing specific that needed to be done to it, other than wiring it, and assembling it. Plus I wanted it out of the way so that it doesn't get damaged.

Here's the completed fixture. I used my standard gold rayon wire, but I spray paint-misted the wires a dull brownish (still letting some of the gold through). I did this on the living room fixture as well, because the parts of the fixture didn't look good with the bright gold wire.







This kind of hanging shade fixture is referred to as a "gravity hook" fixture. The hooks on this one have set-screws to hold them and prevent unhooking, but some other types simply loop on, and are held by the shade/chains (by gravity). Some of these come with longer chains, some have only 1 bulb, but this one has three. I actually went through 2 shades already. The first one was bought months ago at a VERY good price on eBay (~70$ with shipping, compared to some that I've seen at around 350$), but the seller packed it really poorly and it arrived smashed to bits (I was refunded). The current shade is identical to the one that arrived in pieces, but I had to wait several weeks until I found another one at a good price. I think I paid almost the same price for the second one.

I also decided to just temporarily hang the "shell" for one of the MB fixtures (because I'm impatient and I wanted to see how it will look) and I LOVE the colour(s) of the shade with the blue.



Lastly, I decided to remove the GCFI plug over the sink in the spare bedroom (formerly kitchen/laundry room upstairs). Whoever installed this plug did a really poor job. First, as I was removing the plastic cover, the entire box came loose. The box was not even screwed in the wall (even though it would have been extremely easy to do this with the kind of box they were using).

And yes that loose wire above (which used to be in the upper cabinets) is the one going to the plug.





Then when I removed the plug from the box, the neutral wire came loose (or wasn't even attached properly) and I noted the excessively long wires. Long is fine, but this was just ridiculous.



I then pushed the wire up into the attic, and found that the other end was what went to a "mystery junction box" which was just sitting on a board. They must have run short on wire, and just added a piece, but they could have just run the wire directly to the outlet instead of going up to the attic, and back down again.

In the process of doing this, I made an unhappy discovery. The vent pipe over the sink is now broken at the top. The pipe is an old 1 1/2" galvanized one that runs from the basement up to the roof, passing through both the kitchen and upstairs laundry room. But in the attic, for whatever reason, it goes from 1 1/2" to about a 3" or 4". It's at this transition point that the pipe is now broken. I guess with the moisture/water/age, it must have rusted through.

You can see the "mystery junction box" as well as the vent pipe in this old photo.



:S

Too Cool For School

I recently learned through my Mom that my old school (one of them) was recently sold to the Wesleyan Church, and she knew someone who was a member, and apparently there were all these class photos that were "going to the garbage" and they were asking around if anyone wanted them. The lady that my mom knew is actually an old school friend of mine from waaaaaaay back (who used to live up the street from us). She took one of the photos, and I got this one:



My Mom just brought it over tonight, and I was quite happy with it for many reasons. 1: I'm in it (if you must know, look to the window on the left near the centre, then there's 3 people wearing white shirts down and diagonally to the right, and I'm the boy in a dark shirt just in front of the second "white shirt" guy. I would have been in grade 5 at the time, and this was when I was really chubby). 2: It's a whole school panorama! 3: It was free! 4: It's already beautifully (and professionally) framed and matted.

It's actually quite large too, at just under 3 feet wide.

Shade Holders

YES YES YES YES YES YES!!!!!!! *bounces up and down*

I must have a horseshoe stuck somewhere, because not only did I find some old shade holders, but the seller offered international shipping, AND they had *EIGHT* of them available, AND here's the kicker: they were only 2.50$ each!!!!! OMG OMG OMG! Cheaper than new ones!:

Rant (and a bit of an update)

Alright, just a short rant about reproduction parts. As a clockmaker, I run into this problem frequently. I don't understand how a company can go through all the trouble to make replica/replacement parts, and yet get all the proportions or details wrong. The issue that brought this up is related to my lighting (again).

I won an eBay lot for a whole bunch of lighting parts (mainly a few shade holders, some finials, and chain loops). The lot had 3 new repro shade holders (just the kind I was planning to buy to replace all the missing ones I need (I'll need about 9 of them in total). I planned to use these 3 on the light fixture for the office.

But when I looked at them, I immediately didn't like them. I decided that maybe it was just because they're new and shiny, but I put them on the fixture (just quick to see), and they really do look very clunky and "cartoonish" compared to old original ones. Even the thumb screws were huge. The ones you see on there are some smaller repro ones. See for yourself:



If I show a side by side view, you can see it better. The new shade holder almost looks like an obese cousin to the original. Why is it so hard for them to have made them leaner/more sleek like the originals? Obviously whatever company is making these went through the trouble to make templates, etc. Even the slot is too wide.



:(

So now I'm not sure what to do. I can try to hunt down old ones, but I have a feeling this will take forever, and it will be very hard to get matched sets since each lighting company tends to have slightly different profiles on the bells.

I was excited to be able to mount the acorn shade so I set it up temporarily to see how it will look. I need to get a new socket (one with no key or sliding switch since it won't fit), and get a canopy for it.



Lastly, this was the last project I worked on, which was to finish fixing the drywall corners on the doorway leading down to the main floor (corners were really poorly done and I think they put the metal corners on BACKWARDS with the metal on the outside and the paper on the inside - I had to recover with new paper and more mud). Then I installed another set of casings to really dress it up. I could have done just a drywall archway, but I much prefer to have another set of casings, since a plain square opening would have looked odd.

You can see the blue-green master bedroom in the back!



This is the view from in the bathroom.

Bat

Oh and uhh... I had a bat flying around in my garage today. I'm fairly sure it found a way out, but I wasn't able to get it out the front door. Unfortunately, the garage door is partially obstructed so I can't open it all the way.

I really need to do some more weatherproofing in there soon. For one thing, there are gaps along the roof edge (where the rain gutter is), there's also a gap between the garage edge where it's "attached" to the building next door. And don't even mention the garage door, where there's like a 2" gap all the way around.

*sigh*

New Look (For Now)

Alright, after a good 2 hours or so of constant fiddling around I've come up with a working template that I'll use for now. It's still not what I really want, but the only way to truly customize it to EXACTLY what I'd want, would be to do the whole thing in html (which is painstaking).

Lighting (Reprise)

Alright, I decided to upload the two photos now, rather than wait until tomorrow.

Here are the two matching fixtures for the master bedroom. They are currently pull-chain sockets, but I *might* decide to convert them to turn-key style. If I do this, then I will have wasted about 15$ in parts that I bought to replace the two missing pull-chain sockets. :(

The fixtures are currently partially disassembled, and in need of work. If the finish is in good enough shape I'll leave it intact, but I just might have to redo a few pieces because of flaking paint, and dings in the brass (which, when corrected, tend to flake all the paint off).



And these are the shades I'll be using in the office (aka computer room). I have a set of 3, which will work nicely with the 3 shade, 3 chain fixture (posted earlier).

Messing Around & Misc.

Alright, I'm currently still messing around with the blog's layout, so for the time being, you'll see photos overlapping the menus/links on the right. I'm trying to fix this, but I'm having a hard time. Ideally I'd want the blog "text space" to be around 950px wide, with the menus/links on the right of this, or even better: with the menus/links at the top. No configuration I've tried works.

***

Since this is an old house blog, and I'm quite a fan of architectural details, here are just a few photos from my trip to Ottawa.







I will also be posting some photos of the rest of the lighting parts I've got (mainly just a photo of the two master bedroom fixtures, and the frosted shades for the office fixture).