Bedroom floor

Here's what some of the bad parts looked like after sanding. I sanded the floor with an edger, using 60 and 80 grit paper. It didn't seem to take much off, so I used the belt sander with 50, 80 and 100 grit. It took off a lot more, but I gouged the floor a little when I wasn't being careful. Next time I'm going to look in to different floor sanders. The room is only 12' long, so a drum sander would only do the centre section. Next time I want to try the U-sand sander.

There were quite a few dents in the floor, and you could see where someone had a bed for a long time. The floor didn't seem in great shape, considering it's a bedroom, so it should be in better shape.

I used some stainable putty on the worst parts. I probably should have added some stain to try and match the surrounding wood. It matches the sap wood pretty good, not the darker parts.

Here it is after 4 coats of Waterlox, 2 original and 2 glossy. I sanded the floor by hand after the 3 coat, with 220 sandpaper. I used steel wool last time, but found it gets caught on parts of the floor. It had quite a bit of dust, and the sanding made the last coat come out better. It could probably use another coat to even out the gloss. The colour is a lot darker than the last room I did, using the same process. This room faces south, so maybe it's just the extra exposure to sun. Next we do the wallpaper, and we can move back in. We're going to wait until after the built-ins are done to do the trim.

Bedroom painted

We've slowed down a lot since I've gone back to work. We did get some paint on the walls. We had the paint matched to 2 colours on the wallpaper. I wasn't sure if I liked the blue coloured ceiling at first, it just seemed too saturated and artificial. It's starting to grow on me now though. We're going to be building a built-in for the closet, drawers on the bottom, and hung clothes on the top. On the wall with the windows, we're going to add some built in bookcases and a bench under the window. I can't really do all the baseboards and trim, until I have those in place. We do plan on sanding the floor. I was going to do it this weekend, but my back was too sore. I did the dining room with just the edger. A 10x12' room is a little small for a full sized sander. I started mudding the closet, we're going to line it with cedar, so I'm just doing 2 coats, then we'll prime it, and maybe paint it. I probably won't do cedar above the shelf, so it needs to look okay. Hopefully we can move back in, in a couple weeks, once the floor is sanded and varnished.

Dining Room progressing

Here's how the dining room looked on Christmas eve, just before we moved the furniture back in. We pretty happy with how the floor turned out. I did most of it with an edger, and then a belt sander. Since the room is so small, it didn't make sense to use a full sized sander. The edger is a little tricky to use, and I wasn't too happy with how the floor wasn't sanding flat, so I switched to my belt sander, once the finish was off. The floor had a glued down parquet floor that I removed first. It now has 4 coats of Waterlox, the last 2 are glossy.



Here's a picture of the picture rail, it was a lot or work stripping all the paint off of it. We put it back where it was originally, had to trim it a little, since we made the wall with the doors plumb, and did some plaster repair in the corners. We're going to get some picture rail hooks from Rejuvenation, or something similar. We're going to replace the window with a double hung replacement. We have to take the frame out to make it plumb. The top piece of trim was cut down by a previous owner, so we need to replace that too.



Another picture of the picture rail. We have to wait for warmer weather to finish varnishing the doors, so it's green tape for now. You can see the finished speakers at the back. It was nice playing Christmas music during Christmas dinner.

Here's the new air return vent I made. There was an oak one, it was little too big (the trim was less than 1/2" at the top), so I made a new one out of fir. It was a little fussy to make. I glued and nailed in all the vertical pieces, then rabbetted a groove for the 2 centre pieces on the tablesaw. It's on the wall again, but it needs to be varnished. I need to finish the heat vent, I've stripped most of the paint off. We're going to paint it gloss black like the one in the hallway. I think it has some kind of brass plate finish before. It's now the most complete room on the main floor. We have to finish the window, the built-ins we have planned, and the computer closet. So still a long way to go, but we're really happy with it.