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.

Dining room speakers - cutting holes

I didn't take any in progress pics of this. This room is all plaster, so we had to take extra precautions before making holes for some ceiling speakers. I made a backing out of quarter inch plywood to fit in the joist bay, and attached a 2x4 on each end of the plywood. I attached this in the attic to the joists. Of course, I put one of them in the wrong place, even though I'd already drilled a hole for the centre. So I had to rip that one out, and rebuild it. I used a compass to mark out the hole, then cut the plaster out first with a razor knife. Then I used plaster washers to keep the plaster attached to the lathe. Then I used a jigsaw to cut the hole, throught the lathe and the plywood (after drilling a hole to get it started). The plaster still cracked a little, but was way better than without using the plywood and the washers.

Here it is with the wire ready, after finishing the plaster work. It has a coat of concrete fill, and will need a couple more coats to finish it. I'm going to add some styrofoam insulation above the soft of speaker box I built in the attic. The 2x4s hold back the vermiculite as well. We'd like to add more insulation in the attic as well...