Flooring – My Boomtown Revival

August 18, 2019

Family room floor – finished!

Blood, sweat, and tears. But only a few hundred dollars to refinish the family room floor myself, instead of $1700 by a professional*. Was it worth it? The jury is still out.

As a recap, this floor was one I installed myself, from reclaimed Douglas fir. I knew the floor would never look ‘new’, and that was what I was looking for.

From the farm:

To my house in the City (installed but not sanded and finished):

I am not happy with the new colour (see photos below), but I can’t change it unless I’m prepared to re-sand it, and let me tell you, sanding it was tough and I won’t take a re-sanding decision lightly.

It was tough only because I did not have the right sander at the outset. Because it is a softwood (fir), I used a random orbital sander. My understanding was that a belt sander would be too aggressive and I would wreck the floor, particularly in my amateur hands. So, I rented a random orbital sander – one that uses four 6″ round sanding discs. I’m sorry that I didn’t take a picture of that sander, but it was a Cherry Hill U-Sander, rented from my local Rent-it store.

I started with 36 grit. I couldn’t get a 20 grit. I sanded for four days, maybe 18 hours total. Then I went to rent a drum sander and handheld edge sander, but the rental store talked me out of it and rented me a random orbital plate sander. Essentially, the same device as the random orbital disc sander, but using a single large sandpaper instead of four discs. I spent another 2 days sanding with that. I preferred the plate sander over the four disc sander, but it was also very slow.

You’ll notice in the photo above that there are what appear to be barbells attached to the sander. Yes, I tied on 40 pounds of barbells, so that I would get better friction/sanding, because otherwise the machine was entirely useless. For the hours and hours and hours I spent sanding, I had comparatively little sawdust. So, on the next floor it will definitely be the drum sander to start.

Anyway, after the plate sander, I got on my hands and knees and used my own handheld Festool random orbital sander for two days, until I noticed that it was so aggressive that it was leaving marks of its own. So I got out my handheld finish sander and spent another day on my knees sanding out the Festool marks.

I could have kept sanding, but I finally had to call it quits. My holidays were coming to a close and my knees were bleeding. But the floor looked gorgeous. Not brand-new perfect, but stunning to me.

I had to patch two spots before I finished sanding. I used sawdust and glue to mix a matching patch compound.

I ordered a finish called Rubio Monocoat. You can see in the photo below that I ordered cinnamon brown.

I read about Rubio on other blogs and did some brief research and decided that it was suitable for amateur use and would give me the finish look that I was going for – a rubbed oil look, in a single coat! I think another way to describe it is ‘hard-wax oil’.

It is oil – linseed oil. And that is the only smell. No other chemical smell, and while the linseed smell lingered lightly for 2-3 days, it is not an offensive smell.

The product goes on in a wipe on/wipe off fashion. Youtube videos recommended using a floor buffer/polisher for application. Use a red scrub pad to wipe on, a white pad to wipe off, and then a soft cloth wrapped around the white pad to buff and remove any remaining product. I tried that but it was far from easy and I hated doing it. Really hated it. I’ll never use that machine again.

I ended up on my hands and knees again (occasionally wiping my blood and sweat off the floor), and did it that way for half the floor. It was labour intensive, but I liked the result better than the machine. In fact, you can see where I applied by hand and where I applied by machine, and in my view, the hand applied coat is much nicer. Unfortunately, the camera can’t pick up the difference.

Unfortunately, I don’t like the colour. It is too red. I should have stopped at this point and ordered a different colour:

What I loved about using Rubio:

No overlap or streak marks. The way that Rubio works (in my layman terms) is that the top wood cells absorb only as much of the oil as they can hold and no more. Once the cells are saturated, any extra that is put on top will not be absorbed, it will just be wiped off. So, as you wipe on and wipe off, there are no streaks or overlaps. Perfect for an amateur.
One coat only!! Really!
You can walk on it within 24 hours, and it is ‘cured’ in a week.
As I noted above, there is no offensive odour. In fact, I’ve read that some people like the smell. I can’t say that I liked it, but it was just fine, was very light, and dissipated entirely in 3 days.
It appears to be an environmentally friendly product – being linseed based. It’s low VOC.
The oil produces a glow in the wood. There is wonderful glowing depth.
The patches (made with sawdust and glue) are not noticeable as patches, per se, but as colour differentials. But since there are wide colour variations in the floor already, the patched ones don’t stand out in any way. The board in the photo above, just under the electrical socket, is one of the patched boards.

What I was less enamoured with:

I picked the wrong colour. Because where I live it is online ordering only and because I had only a week to get the entire project done and the sanding took far longer than I thought it would, I did not order samples and try out a few first, and I didn’t stop and re-order once I saw that it was too red/dark. This is entirely on me. But the lack of local dealer was a problem, and had there been a local dealer I would have stopped and reconsidered.
I got the product on my skin and it does not come out easily. I scrubbed with steel wool and got nowhere. Now, a week later, most of it is off, but my nails are still stained. I called the Canadian company to ask for their recommendation on removal, but got a response that suggests they’d never turned their minds to the possibility that someone might get it on their skin. Their suggestion for removal was soap and water.
The buffer process was problematic for me. I don’t know how other non-professionals managed that, but I didn’t. I did not get the best out of the product because of the buffer.
Because it is linseed oil, there are high flammability risks in used cloths/towels. I went through an entire old cotton bedsheet for wiping on/wiping off, and each fabric piece had to be laid out flat to dry before I put them in the bin.

So, the finished product, right? Let’s see it. I just want to warn that the photos don’t do justice to it. It truly glows. But it’s also really red.

It looks like an old-world finish to me, and just what I wanted.

So, walnut floor upstairs is next. Definitely starting with a drum sander, and not wasting time being gentle. Will use a ‘pure’ coat of Rubio, because I still like the product. I hope to get to that floor in the next few weeks.

*I had an estimate from a professional for almost $7000 for four similar-sized rooms, about 200 square feet each. The professional also told me that hard-wax oil finishes were not available in Canada because they were banned by Health Canada. Not true. So, he wasn’t going to give me the finish I wanted.

June 28, 2019

Is it over the top to expect a level floor?

The new basement floor was poured almost three years ago, by asshat builder. I posted earlier about being promised a 7′ basement, but receiving something less – more like 6’8″. Since my son is 6’4″ and possibly still growing, every inch down there counts, as it is supposed to be a play area for him.

Drywall/taping/mudding was finished last week and it’s ready to be painted and finished. And this week, since I’m on vacation, I went down there to do that. That is when I noticed that the floor is nowhere close to level. I don’t know why I never noticed before, or maybe I noticed but did not understand the consequence, because I’m not an effing builder. I’m only trying to pick up the pieces and staunch the copious flow of cash out my door by doing some work myself. Live and learn baby (I’m listening to Nina Simone as I write).

When I think back to when it was being poured, I recall seeing one of the asshat’s assistants levelling it with a 2×4, which I have seen being done on TV. Since there are dips in the floor greater than two inches, I can only surmise that the massive dips were installed on purpose.

Like, I can’t understand how something other than a reasonably level floor could have been installed.

In any event, after years of being shocked and dismayed by the work of the asshat builder and his asshat associates, I understood that there was nothing to be done except to fix it, since no sub-floor would sit on it properly. So, I undertook to use a self-levelling cement . I’ve never done this before and have zero experience with working with cement, but I’ve seen it on TV. Not unexpectedly, like it was for Goldilocks, it’s been a bit of a disaster for me.

The good news is that my son helped me and I never once had to pick up or carry any of the bags and bags of 50lb cement.

Other good news is that I figured out that you can’t believe what you read on a label. The label on the cement said to use about 5L of water per 50lb bag, and that for my roughly 150 square feet I would need four bags of the stuff.

But after mixing four bags with roughly 20L of water, I was left with a substance that wouldn’t really pour/self-level (it required pushing around with the handy squeegee I bought) and only covered one corner of the space.

So, we had to let that dry and went back to the hardware store to buy four more bags. This time I Googled reviews of this product and added more water as was recommended by some users. Unfortunately, too much, and it probably won’t set properly. But it still didn’t cover the entire floor.

So, copy and paste, we had to let that dry (as much as it will) and went back to the hardware store to buy four more bags. Like I said, the good news is that I had my son to carry the cement. I’m an old lady now and my hands and wrists don’t like 50lb bags of dead weight. And he liked learning how *not* to pour cement.

And, four days later, I’ve decided we’re close enough, and once we have concrete, I will wipe up the water soup left over and we will shim the heck out of the subfloor and proceed as if everything is “just right.”

June 28, 2019

Walnut floor

Who doesn’t love reclaimed wood?! I’m one of those people who gets extra joy out of reusing something historical and/or beautiful. Saving some cash is nice too. And knowing my own labour went into it makes me feel good too. So, three really good reasons to reuse! And that’s not even mentioning the environmental savings. No boatload of wood taken to the dump. No need to purchase additionally harvested wood. I can feel good about that too.

The main bedroom has walnut flooring, harvested from the living and dining rooms.

From here:

To here:

Stll not finsihed…. when the builder cleared out from doing trim work in this room, he took my mallet. Has not yet been returned.

What was notable when I took up the walnut floor is how many really short pieces went into it. The majority of pieces are 28-30″, with the shortest being 9″ and the longest being about 45.” In comparison, the fir taken from my grandma’s house ranged from 48″-180.” Much easier to install longer boards.

But, the walnut is nice too.

It still needs to be sanded and refinished, but I’m going to go for a similar natural finish.

May 21, 2019May 24, 2019

Reusing walnut floor

In my madness, I decided to use the walnut floor from my original living/dining room in the new master bedroom. The walnut was installed in the 1980’s, on top of original Douglas fir. Because it was added on top of the original floor, there is a small step up when entering the living room.

It was a brief moment of madness, but once I’d started pulling up the walnut, I was stuck with that decision.

Walnut floor in living room, facing dining room

Pulling it up went fairly quickly and easily, although my knees are barely up to the task these days. I suffered for several days afterward.

Floor comes off easily, but not without some waste

Under the walnut was a brown tile, made to look like wood. Why not install wood-like tile over a wood floor. Makes perfect sense.

Yes, probably asbestos. I removed it quickly and it’s out.

Under the brown tile was linoleum. It has a diffused pattern, so only discernable what it is from a distance. It did not come up in a single piece or I might have entertained using it elsewhere. Yes, I’m odd. But the centre had been glued down with tar-like substance, so it came off in small pieces.

Original fir, layer of linoleum, layer of ‘wood’ tile, and then walnut. Why all that when the fir was there?

Linoleum, underneath the “wood” tiles. Leaf pattern is only evident from a distance. Up close it is quite pixalated.

And underneath is beautiful 3 ½” Douglas fir. And now there is no height differential between the hallway/living and kitchen/dining room. All the same Doug fir.

Beautiful fir, underneath. Yes, will need some repairs.

There are spots that will need replacing- where boards are splintered and the like. And there is a real soft spot at the bay window. There is clearly insufficient structure to support the floor in that spot. Good thing I have not sealed under the bay window completely! I think I can remove the insulation, restructure to provide support, and then replace the insulation. You can see in the photo below where the exterior of the bay window was never properly sealed or insulated. The silver is where I installed 4″ rigid foam last summer. Before that it was only the baseboard that protected the house from the outside under the bay window!!

I think I will be happy with the fir when I have a chance to refinish it. Right now I’ve got it covered with brown paper, while we wait for the addition to be done and we can move our living space over there. The chore list does not get shorter.

April 6, 2019April 6, 2019

New family room floor

This past winter, 2018, I finished installing reclaimed Douglas fir from my grandmother’s house into my new family room. It was easy and hard at the same time. What was hard:

Getting started;
Three trips to the farm to get more wood; and
Calculating board feet exactly, so that I did not have to trim length from any piece.

What was easy:

Installing it (despite my many complaints about a sore back).

It still needs to be sanded and refinished. I was going to do shellac and wax, the way it was done traditionally, but after seeing what my dog has done to the finish with his nails, I am going to go with something stronger and more durable.

It is by no means perfect. But I did it, and I was able to reuse my grandmother’s flooring, which makes me very happy.

Floor installed. But look, my adorably cute dog with his stocking on Christmas morning!

And, obviously, it needs to be sanded and refinished. Someone else can do that part.

Here’s a close up of the old growth fir, tongue and groove – over 100 years old and it has never been sanded.

And, some historical information about the flooring – it came from a mill in Vancouver owned by John Hanbury. He had started out in Brandon, Manitoba, and eventually bought out other mills in British Columbia. This flooring is stamped from Vancouver.

J. Hanbury & Co. Mill, False Creek, BC. Taken from City of Vancouver Archives. My flooring came from here.

Here is some math done by the original installers:

I can’t tell what they were figuring out. Do you know?

February 22, 2018

Bathroom Floor

Tiling of the bathroom floor is done. It is marble hexagon tile, with in-floor heat. It looks very nice.

The bathroom is 6×10.

Clawfoot tub along back of wall, under window. Toilet, vanity, and sink along the left wall. Wiring on right wall is for in-floor heat and convection wall heater. There is no forced air heat in the bathroom.

In-floor heat is installed. That is real luxury and will be much appreciated.

The plumbing can’t be done until the mudding and taping is done. Then, I’m planning for beadboard or panelling. And then the tub, sink, and toilet can be installed. Since the plumber tore apart my only existing bathroom on Tuesday and as of Thursday it is still torn apart (see the next post), I’m feeling the need to get moving on getting at least one of these bathrooms done. I find it very difficult to make decisions on fixtures. That’s what slows me down.

October 1, 2017

Last Piece of Old Kitchen Flooring Gone

If anyone asks why my DIY renovations take so long, this explains why: I’m a homeowner with no carpentry skills and I get my information from Google. The only thing I have going for me is my fearlessness (which is really just a lack of understanding of the risks) and a willingness to throw more money at my projects.

Earlier this week I took out the dishwasher, so that my brother could work on the kitchen crawlspace. Since it was out, I took the opportunity to pull out the counter and get at the last bit of old flooring underneath. That was on Saturday morning.

There was a different linoleum under the sink, and not as many layers as had been elsewhere in the kitchen.

Different linoleum pattern than discovered elsewhere

Glad to see the original flooring was not in too bad a shape.

But definitely lots of mouse activity.

Brothers.

Cousins

Old Friends

I plugged what I could see for holes with steel wool and silicone. I think the two circular holes were where the first pump for running water sat.

Then I stuffed steel wool into crevices and around the heating duct.

I think I got this particular area sealed off from mice. But a few hours later a daring mouse on recon spent a few moments in the open watching tv with us, before running off into the kitchen. Maybe it likes Glee or maybe it was giving me stink eye for removing the super-highway. But it plainly did not care that the house is already occupied by humans.

As usual, I’m quite effective at taking things apart. Not so good at putting back together.
Taking out the old flooring means the counter dropped an inch or so, which means that the plumbing no longer meets under the sink.

As happens with homeowners untrained in carpentry, I made several trips to the hardware store to get the parts I thought I needed, but I still don’t have the right stuff (literally and figuratively). Obviously, running water and a working drain are important in a kitchen, so I have to get this figured out before the rush of the new work week on Monday.

I thought this project was small – just undoing the plumbing under the sink to the degree that I could pull the counter away from the wall, cleaning up underneath the sink, taking out the layers of flooring, filling the mouse holes, and then reassembling the plumbing – and I thought I would be done in 5-6 hours, but now it is Sunday and have another couple of hours of work because of my error on having the right plumbing parts. Oh, plus, the copper pipe that goes to the dishwasher will not allow itself to reattach – the nut will not slide down the pipe to where it’s supposed to be. I have no idea why but it appears hung up on burrs or the tube shape is no longer round, that kind of thing. But this pipe at the right length and the right fittings is not on the shelf at the hardware store. It’s custom made by a plumber.

So, I will have to call a plumber when it’s time to reinstall the dishwasher, ’cause I don’t have time to train myself in proper plumbing this week.

My liveable space on the main floor is currently at about 300 square feet. I have about 12″ of counter space to work with and all kitchen surfaces are covered in construction dust. With no running water to rinse off the dust before using the kitchen and the usual weekday rush looming, I have to get this figured out today.

September 24, 2017

Kitchen Crawlspace Update

I had some help this weekend from my brother. He’s a hard worker. We cleaned out the remaining cellulose from the kitchen crawlspace and the pink insulation that was between the floor joists.

Cleaned up crawlspace. Nice to find it has concrete floor.

There were few signs of wildlife in the cellulose, but the pink insulation was riddled with mouseways, poop, and the odd skeleton. Ew.

My brother helped get the super-glued plywood off the kitchen floor, so now just a strip under the sink and dishwasher, and then the whole kitchen floor is down to original fir. Part of the kitchen addition has a different hardwood and the other part has yet to be revealed. I’m suspecting the same fir as the original kitchen floor.

The kitchen addition has a 2″ slope toward the back door. My brother determined that the addition hasn’t shifted since it was jacked and supported in the late 1990s, so We’re going to correct this by removing the flooring, building a level/shimmed subfloor, and putting in fir to match the rest of the kitchen. “We” means my brother, with me helping out when I can.

August 1, 2017September 21, 2017

Kitchen Floor Fiddling

Man, this kitchen floor will not give up the ghost easily. I’ve struggled with removing 8 layers of previous flooring, layer by layer, including the last layer of plywood that often had to be removed splinter by splinter. Honest to goodness I counted 22 nails along one 24″ edge. See my previous post on this topic for further laughs.

This weekend was a little better. I got the flooring beneath one side of the lower cabinets off without much difficulty, because it only had three layers of flooring, and then the cabinet re-installed easily, albeit an inch and a half lower than before. I also cleaned my extremely dirty stove and put it back into place. Nothing like cooking grease caked with renovation dust. It was satisfying to get it cleaned up.

I didn’t tackle under the other side of the cupboards because that side has the plumbing – sink, water filter, and dishwasher. Since whenever I touch something I wreck it and the whole cabinet system would be dropped an inch and a half, I decided I didn’t want to be in the position of calling a for-real-plumber on the weekend.

It’s unfortunate, because that side has the major mouse activity – a superhighway. I’d really love to seal that off, but because of the plumbing that will have to wait until I think the situation through and psych myself up to do it. Maybe next weekend.

Exit ramp for mouse superhighway. Carcasses of many accident victims located under cabinet.

Several interesting discoveries in the kitchen! What I thought was a single porch turned into a kitchen ‘bump out’ was something else. Not sure yet what, but the pieces of that puzzle are coming together.

The kitchen ‘bump out’ is made up of two structures. The newly revealed floor shows that a structural wall (long since removed) divided the two spaces north to south. The east space has painted narrow plank hardwood installed perpendicular to the kitchen flooring, which runs north to south.

East side narrow plank hardwood, perpendicular to Doug fir kitchen floor

The west space has original siding on the outside but on the inside the floor has a sheet of plywood overtop an opening to the crawlspace below. I wasn’t able to get that plywood off yet because it glued down with industrial strength adhesive, so don’t know if the crawlspace extends under the east space as well. I haven’t bothered climbing under the space, because it’s filled with cellulose, spiders, and mice. See my next post for more on that topic. Anyway, finding out whether the crawl space extends under both sides of the ‘bump out’ will help solve the puzzle, once I figure out how to get the plywood off without wrecking it.

So, my guess now as to the origins of the space is that the east side was always porch, and the west side was built as an addition to the kitchen in the 1960s. The reason I say the ’60s is because there is a wood threshold that fills in the space where the exterior wall was removed and that piece of wood has a stencil on it that says “Western Cabinet Ltd.”.

With a tiny bit of internet research in between prying off layers of floor, I saw that this was a company that was in business in the ’60s.

I wasn’t able to track down when it ceased business, so a trip the library will be required. Complicating this theory is that the second to last linoleum (yellow-y) was only installed in the east space, while the west space had a sheet of plywood.

Strip of yellowed 1980s linoleum between hardwood and sheet of plywood

Both spaces were not covered with linoleum until the last owner put it in the late 1990s. But for now I’m going with a kitchen remodel in the ’60s that took out the exterior wall of the house and the east wall of the porch and added the east space, resulting in over 60 new square feet in the kitchen, and of course brand new cabinets. The work wasn’t permitted, as I’ve checked on those. Anyway, this scenario explains the different roof configurations between the east and west space. The west space (the former porch) is sloped, while the east space is not.

The 1960s cabinets are gone. What I have now is 1990s oak in Shaker style. Nice enough but the carpenter routered the inner edges, eliminating the clean edge of a simple Shaker, and also the hardware is polished brass. Not my fave, although I’ve seen in a few magazines that polished brass is making a comeback.

The major difficulty for me in the long run will be the sunshine ceiling. The cabinets were built to that 7 foot height, instead of to the 8 foot ceiling, so they won’t be tall enough and will look awkward when I take the sunshine out. Also, the electrician who installed the lovely fluorescent fixtures in the sunshine ceiling simply stapled the wiring to the popcorn ceiling. So, lots of work when it comes time to take the sunshine out.

After I accepted that the plywood floor was not coming off today, I got out my belt sander and had a go at the fir. Quite exciting! It will look very nice when it’s sanded. My plan is to shellac and wax it. The idea of re-waxing my floor once a year makes me feel good. Connects me to my mother and grandmother. A feel-good day.

October 1, 2016May 24, 2017

Wow – Original Flooring

I’ve got shiveries – there’s wood flooring in my kitchen! Well, under two subfloors and generations of linoleum. But I’ve just uncovered a couple of inches of what looks like intact, healthy fir flooring!! Yay me!

Closeup of original fir under 3 sub floors and 5 layers of linoleum.

I’m a little unsure how to move forward right now. I was only taking a look-see for interest sake, because getting excited about any true character of this house is good for me, but also because eventually the builders are going to build a doorway into the addition at this spot and I want them to do it at the level of the original floor, ’cause that’s where the kitchen is headed some time down the line. I was only enlightened yesterday that there are likely two sub-floors laid upon the original wood floor when I took out the deck-porch yesterday. I looked closely at the floor near the front door and noticed what looked like two subfloors and two sets of linoleum sandwiched between.
Anyway, I think I’ve now confirmed that there is wood flooring in the kitchen and hallway, and likely under the walnut in the living room/dining room that was laid in the 1990’s sometime. I’m baffled why homeowners would cover wood flooring with plywood or particle board and then lay vinyl. I’m a little worried that it was for a good reason, that is, the wood floor got damaged beyond repair in the middle or something like that. That’s the worse case scenario. But given that I saw yesterday that some homeowner built an ugly deck-porch overtop a perfectly healthy, proportioned, and appropriate concrete step, it could be that similar silly thinking went into covering nice and healthy wood flooring – to modernize or some crazy thing.
Anyway, not sure what next steps are, being aware of asbestos etc. I’m going to research what true linoleum looks like and then decide. If the first layer on the wood is true linoleum (it has an textile weave in it, much different from vinyl), then I can cut through both subfloors and all their vinyl or asbestos flooring and get right to the linoleum, and hopefully prevent giving myself or my family lung cancer.
Wow, what an exciting day! I wish I had a week off to pull the entire kitchen floor out!

Update: I did some basic internet research and found this website:
http://inspectapedia.com/interiors/Linoleum_Flooring.php
It says that true linoleum is jute backed and does not contain asbestos. I’m pretty sure I’m dealing with a jute backing, so I’m going to proceed as if it’s got no asbestos. As long as I cut through all the previous layers and subfloors I should be good to go.

Update: I will need a whole week off work to get this floor off! So far I’ve got about 6 feet x 2 feet uncovered and it’s taken about 5 hours of work. And it’s hard work.