Ooooh... it stinks, it stinks!

Spring is moving rapidly toward the warm days of summer, and it is so beautiful here in the wine country. The valleys are green with grapes that promise an amazing harvest in the fall.

As much as we would love to go and play in the sun with rest of our comrades, we are keeping our noses to the grindstone and staying indoors. Overlooking the five million unfinished details, it is floor time. We laid the hardwood two years ago and covered them in layers of paper and ramboard for protection, and promptly forgot about them. But the time has come. Layers and layers of protective paper has been peeled up from the living room, the gallery, the breakfast room, and the kitchen.

When we installed the walnut floors, we made one of those "what were we things" decisions, and added hand driven cut nails to the surface. Two rectangular nails every sixteen inches, on each board. Eleven thousand nails in total, each one requiring a pilot hole to be drilled before the nail was driven in with a hammer. As the boards were also glued  to the subfloor, we chose to wait until the glue was cured before we did the counter sinking of the nails. After two unintentional years of curing, who would have thought it would take two years to get to the floors, we are now faced with countersinking nail after nail after nail.

Sanding was next. Two passes with a monstrous and heavy oscillating floor sander. 80 grit paper to begin with, to knock down any rough edges or scratches, followed by a screening with 120 grit. A fast and furious vacuuming and we were ready. Phillip filled in the edges and tough to reach spots as I mopped in the field with a lambs wool floor applicator. The first coat of tongue oil went down rapidly and the walnut immediately turned chocolate brown. So beautiful and very glossy, fortunately the gloss becomes a satin glow as the finish dries. Waterlox floor finish is so easy to work with and I have definitely learned the ins and outs of applying it, but, in case no one ever told you... it smells to high heaven!

Three days of lightheadedness (wow, who would have thought that would be one word!) On the second day I did a light screening with the 120 grit screen, vacuumed well, and then went right into coat number two. Day three was the final coat and then came the torturous wait for the finish to dry and the smell to dissipate.

Wet and glossy, like a large pool of water in the kitchen

The gallery about to get its final coat of finish

Of course this was not our first foray into floor finish in the house as we had done the Master bedroom and the Dining room just a few short weeks ago. But those rooms were so much smaller and less time consuming. It was also very fortunate that we had done the Dining room as it gave us a place to put our mobile kitchen island, and the stove.

Sad to see such a mess in the dining room

The floors on the East side of the first floor are finally finished, and we are so happy to have it done. Now its onto base shoe, and trim paint, and doors finishes, window stop, and roping and weighting.
And those things are just items on the first floor.

JUNE 5th, 2012

Phillips Birthday, and my timing worked really well. On Saturday the second of June, I had convinced him that we should go to our storage spaces and get our sofa and a chair or two to put in the living room. Now that the floors were done it would be nice to have a place to at least sit in there.
After a few stops here and there to stall for time, we arrived at the storage space, and to Phillips surprise he found waiting for us a piano moving company. Phillips baby grand piano, which came to him through his great Grandmother, and has been in storage for more than three years, finally came home to 227 North Street.

The piano boys bringing her into the living room

the legs go on

Phillip couldn't wait to play again.

#bobvila

Our big adventure

The Weather has definitely changed to spring, the roses are blooming, town is bustling with visitors and the tasting rooms and vineyards are mad with the sounds of sipping. The farmers market is open again, and folks are buzzing about river races, the upcoming FFA parade and fair, and music in the square...

Roses amongst the ruins

"Sigh", such a wonderful place to live and where are we? covered head to toe in plaster, sawdust, primer, paint and filth, never seeing the outside light of day. Six weeks and counting to refinance and somehow we will make it.

We are currently plastering our way up and through the center hall, all three stories. And simultaneously, installing more woodwork, stripping more doors, and getting prepared to to finish more floors. The big adventure came with the rental of a Gradall. What a fun toy!

Step one: Drive 5 minutes to the rental company
Step two: Spend 30 minutes driving the Gradall back to the house (it does not go very fast)
Step three: Spend 10 minutes strapping a cast iron tub to the Gradall, and lift it to the second story
Step four: Spend 30 minutes driving the Gradall back to the rental company.

Lots of time driving it around town, and just a few minutes to do the job, but, it saved any possible damage to the tile floor in the center hall, or the staircase. And I have to say it was fun! Crazy to drive as it has rear wheel steering and bounces along the road like crazy, but you know...
"boys and their big boy toys!"

Arrival on the second floor, and in through the second floor hall door

And now, as much as I would love to write more and stupefy you with my humor and wit, I am afraid that I must get to work. On the agenda this morning, more woodwork. I am on the verge of finishing the installation of the three door jambs at the top of the third floor staircase, two original and one recreated. I need to get them in and trimmed out so we can plaster and once the doors are hung it should help to keep the lower floors cooler over the summer.

A couple of parting shots for the day...
Third floor staircase nearing completion!

So that's how that works

Now to work and more adventures!


#bobvila

Suck up and bust!

HUH?, what the hell is "suck up and bust"? 

I have a dear old friend from Tennessee, who speaks with a rathah difficult to understand Southern drawl. "Suck up and bust" was always one of her favorite sayings. A translation would be... buck up and get over it, move on, and work harder. 

We are at eight weeks and counting before our note term runs out and we must be refinanced. We have a list a mile long of walls to be plastered, floors to be finished, doors to be hung, bathroom fixtures to locate and install, door hardware, a temporary railing for the deck, priming and painting of trim, baseboards and doorjambs for the third floor hall.... the list goes on and on, so...

Suck up and bust!

We are living and working in a huge mess as we continue to plaster ceilings and walls, at times it is more than we can stand but we manage. That is until my meltdown last Thursday when our house keeper called to say he was sick and would not be here on Friday, I grabbed the sides of my head and shouted, "noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo"

I consequently took Friday off and spent the day putting the house in some sort of order, but when you are faced with the mess in pictures below it is hard to know where to begin.

Plaster work in the Master Bathroom, very inviting don't you think?

Plaster staging in guest bedroom 2, lovely!

We have plastered the Master Bathroom, and the ceiling in guest bathroom number two.

Basecoat being applied to the Master Bathroom

Guest Bath 2 wood all primed and sanded ready for paint, and the ceiling complete

At the same time we tackled the Master Bedroom. Of course that meant moving out of the room and into guest bedroom number one. We now know what it is like to spend the night with us. Not bad actually, I was afraid it would be noisy as the guest rooms are on the front of the house, of course I would never have told that to anyone visiting us. It took a couple of hours to move the furniture out of the master bedroom, and an entire day of sorting, dusting, and purging to empty the master closet. Who would have thought that so much crap could be shoved into one closet in just a single year.
With the space empty, and the floors covered the fun began.

Seams taped and the ceiling basecoat applied

We finished the ceilings in a white color coat and then moved onto the walls, basecoat and then color. As with all color integrated plaster we grabbed the dice and rolled, when they landed we had...

SMURF BLUE!

Well not exactly, as it has calmed down quite a bit to the soft blue grey we had hoped for, but at first it was alarming to say the least.

Working along the walls with the color coat

Phillip working over the door

Blue walls and bare wood floor

ready for trim paint

Trust me, the color is much more ALIVE in real life

We spent two weeks in the front bedroom while we worked our way through the Master bedroom. We made the decision to go ahead and finish the floors while we were moved out of it, along with the dining room. Although I have yet to take pictures of the Master Bedroom floor, I did grab a couple of shots of the Dining Room. Three days of fuming hell and we have exactly what we were hoping for. Black walnut with the soft glow of tongue oil. Best part of this finish is the upkeep, if we get a wear spot or traffic pattern we can simply wipe more finish on.

The light patch is the sun shining in the window behind me

Yes, the table legs are vintage radiators

I have to get myself upstairs and get to work. But a parting shot today is a new arrival. We purchased it out of a house up the street because it was in really fine shape, came with all of the hardware, and is only five feet long, which is exactly what we needed. Of course a four hundred plus pound bathtub is not very fun to move. Next Saturday we are renting an articulating fork lift to raise it up to the door above the front porch, as I put my foot down on the concept of carrying it up the front staircase, all that work could be ruined in the blink of an eye.

Cute little thing, it of course has claw feet and a shower surround

So I promise to get some pictures of our second flying bathtub this coming weekend.
:)
#bobvila

Four out of Five ain't bad

At all of the famous and not so famous places in the world a miracle has occurred, the sun came up an hour later. Which of course means that the sun will now...

You guessed it folks!

set an hour later. This event is a huge reprieve from the darkness of winter as we continue our daily work on 227 North Street.

Not quite the picturesque view, but it someday soon it will be.

The past weeks have been spent in the drudgeries of more dry wall (veneer board) in preparation of plastering the second floor, base boards, painting of the second staircase and yet another bathroom. Bathroom number four out of five. At least we can say we only have one more to go. Tweaking the plumbing to fit perfectly, installing the veneer board on the ceiling, adding a gazillion support blocks, insulation, preparing the doorjambs and the doors, and finally we began to lay the floor.

White marble like all of the bathroom floors in house

This time I am using QEP Lash leveling system This spacer system keeps all of the tiles level to each other, which means no lippage, or tiles that are higher than others. A great invention, and the tiles are incredibly level to each other, but I will say that the creators idea of a 1/16th inch grout line, and my idea of a 1/16th inch grout line are very, very different.

The floor is finished, grouted in bright white, and unfortunately covered in paper before I got a picture.
We then moved onto the walls. We had this brilliant idea (yes JT I used the word "brilliant"). Lets mix it up and put narrow, floor to ceiling beadboard on the walls. It will be fast and pain free and would mean... no plaster! Sounds great right? Wrong! We both now have a new appreciation for solid wood walls. Not only because of the ka-ching factor, way, way more than we could have imagined, but it was also incredibly fussy, and painstaking to install. Four full days of cutting and fitting, tweaking and adjusting, leveling and nailing. Followed by baseboards, baseboard cap, and crown molding, and we are ready to add two coats of primer and two coats of high gloss, white, oil base paint..... ARG! and we still have to plaster the ceiling! what were we thinking?

A view through the door. Just add paint, a vintage claw foot tub, a pedestal sink, and commode.

As the sun sets an hour later here... I will repeat my earlier feeling about this... "Yeah!"
I want to tell you about one of those interesting moments that happen around this place we call home.
I received an email from a man who was doing some research and came across my blog. He had been reading my entry entitled "When Queens come calling" The entry involves a photograph of the 1896 Healdsburg Floral Festival Queen in a carriage, in front of what is now our home. The queens name was Alice Haigh Dixon.

Alice Haigh Dixon, surrounded by her court, May 1896

The Queen in front of our home

The email was from a gentleman by the name of Brian Dixon. Brian had an old painting in his garage and wanted to know if we would like to have it. It was painted by Alice Haigh Dixon. Of course I said yes and we were thrilled when the painting arrived in the mail. The Queens painting is back in Healdsburg. Perhaps when she stopped by the house in 1896 she meant to bring the painting to the then Mistress of our house, Mrs. Marshall. Perhaps Alice accidentally left the painting at home, and promised to bring it at a later date. Perhaps it only took one hundred and sixteen years for the painting to make its way here. Perhaps the painting is here now resting above our fireplace.

Perhaps someday I will consent to nails being driven into our new plaster walls, and the painting can hang a bit higher.... Probably not!

#bobvila