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Mastering the poly… Sand, then second coat:
Having too much fun:
A little touch up there:
Oh but what’s this?
We set up the bed frame!
We’re planning to get the guest mattress/ slat base this weekend. Just a few more items needed: Window treatments, side table / dresser, side chair, art, MATTRESS, linens… But most of these items we already have/ have ideas for.
Can’t wait to fully check this room off the list, then get out the camera for some wide angle shots!
After work today we went on an ICA behind the scenes tour of the Union League and then back home to work on the house… The league has a fascinating history and a great club house (which is also only a few years older then our house … 1865 vs. 1872)! Look it up some day if you have time.
So back to our odds and ends to finish up the 2nd floor.
The inside of the air return in the hall was spray painted black for a consistent look,
And our salvaged and refinished grille finally installed. The finish works well with the ceiling and light fixture colors.
Kelly also touched up the polyurethane on the floor in both bedrooms and the hall.
This is where we patched in and refinished the floor when we moved the bedroom door location to add the closets. You would never know…
In addition we did some more paint touch-ups, reinstalled the smoke detectors, and lastly installed new hooks. The bathroom and our bedroom got these handy and clean line fold down hooks. When not in use they are very discrete and almost go away.
Here was a new cute elephant hook for Kelly’s purse in our closet.
At this rate we may even be able to set up our guest bed tomorrow night.
Sunday was filled with wrapping up a ton of little projects, which made it feel like I got a lot done but without much to show for it. I painted two coats on the mechanical soffit panel:
Primed and painted a ton of stops, base and other misc wood:
Third coat of water based poly on the cork:
Second and final coat of blue in the hall:
Whew. I’m tired thinking about it. Also discovered that our master bedroom plaster ceiling, which was laminated over with drywall a long time before we moved in, had been painted the exact same blue as our bedroom walls. The yellow is wall paper…
(I’m not getting into the story of just HOW I managed to figure this out)
The cork came pre-finished, but the manufacturer recommended a few coats of water based polyurethane after installation… Today was the day:
I gathered my poly, a paint pan liner, a ‘chip’ brush (disposable paint brush), and an applicator specifically for water based poly which screws onto a standard broom handle. Here’s what I started with:
I started in the furthest corner, working toward the door, in the direction of the tiles, and used the chip brush to cut in the edge. Using water based poly is like mopping with hand soap, or watered down glue- not really in a good way:
After it was done I waited two hours, then it was time to lightly sand the first coat:
After some microfiber-ing, I put on another coat, with probably one more coat to go:
I poly-ed the threshold too while I was at it. Fun tasks for a snowy day!
The cork’s down but there are a few more steps to go, including applying two coats of water based poly and the bottom -shoe- part of the baseboard.
Threshold between hall & bedroom. Before we installed the cork I sanded and stained it and we plan to take the water based poly right over it from the cork.
After. We chose to center a full tile on the threshold:
Before. Tools of the measuring trade strewn about the self leveled floor:
After. We used a rented 100lb roller to make sure the tiles adhered fully.
And a view from the closet. Per product instructions, we left a hairline gap between all of the tiles to account for possible swelling of the tiles during the summer months.
Before (a crazy storage/ project prep room):
After (practically ready for furniture):
To prove that it’s a whole new room, I decided to lay down on the floor (extremely risky behavior before) to get a good photo of the ceiling:
More on that light fixture soon. The cork is similar to wood floor- warm to the touch, a little bit of give, and smooth. The color was pretty consistent too. So far so good!
The first step (after confirming a solid substrate and deploying the self leveler) was to clean the floor and decide on how to lay out the 12×24 tile. Once we had a decision we sketched a grid on part of the floor:
The adhesive is similar to rubber cement- first you trowel a layer directly on the floor:
Then let it dry. This took a little over an hour and we could still see our lines on the floor:
Then we used the little roller to put a thin layer of adhesive on the back of each tile. There were about 40 or so tiles, so it took a while. (I have like seven layers of clothes on because it was freezing out and we had to run to Home Depot right before hand to rent a roller… More on that later.)
The adhesive had to “flash” (dry) for 15 minutes or so on the back of the tiles, here they are drying:
So now that both the floor and tiles were slightly sticky, you can finally place the tiles on the floor using the sketched lines as guides. Then press with a tile float:
And then roll with the 100 lb roller:
It’s almost 3am and we just finished installing/admiring our cork floor… More to come soon!
It’s a New Year… And we are still working on the house…
First resolution, finish door casing… checked off:
Next up baseboard, the before:
Checked off:
The shoe molding which goes at the bottom of the base will get installed after the flooring.
Another resolution, FINISH THE HOUSE…. it will take some more work… so check back later this year : /
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