Guest Room – hammer and stitches

The upstairs floors are 100% done, and they look Awesome! Now that it’s all said and done the floors were not really a hard project, but a very very tedious project. Sanding all the edges by hand required a lot of patience, but it felt good to finally check that off the list. Next step, cleaning, lots and lots of cleaning. As one would assume, it creates quite a mess. After our first round of sanding we came downstairs to find the entire living room covered in a thin layer or dust.

Once the floors were as clean as we could possibly get them it was time to stain. When we finally arrived at this step both Seth and myself were extremely nervous. It was a lot of build up getting to this point, and this is the part that would really show if we did a horrible job, or what if the color we chose was actually terrible in a large space? Thankfully neither of those things turned out to be true. In fact it was the easiest part of this whole project, very much like The Karate Kid, “wax on, wax off”. We got a nice rhythm going, Seth would wipe the stain into the floor and I would follow a minute after and wipe it off.

I think it only took us a little more than 2 hours to apply stain to the entire second floor, not bad. Then we took a break. It was a nice excuse to do nothing since we had to wait for the stain to dry and couldn’t be upstairs. Lastly, it was time for the polyurethane. So this is the quickest step in the floor process, but I would say the easiest to make mistakes. The polyurethane simply gets wiped on with an applicator that looks a lot like a mop. The tricky part is making sure you don’t miss spots and that it doesn’t pool anywhere. Seth took responsibility for the majority of this step, which I was totally okay with. He did a great job 🙂

Two coats of polyurethane later the floors were done! Again we were able to a take long break since we couldn’t walk on them for seven days. It is very liberating to actually not be able to work on any projects, I was happy for the week off. So now after the bathroom, that was the second hardest project upstairs. It should only get easier from here…fingers crossed.

It’s been quite some time since the last post…three months in fact! Too long, between a few trips, and just life, it’s been a busy start to summer. So what have we done in the last couple of months?

The bathroom tub and surround is 100% done! The fixtures have been installed; the tile has been grouted and sealed. And it looks awesome! But seriously, grouting tile on HGTV, super easy, grouting in real life not so much. Of course I chalk this up to skill and the learning curve, but grout dries soooo fast, and when they just cleanly wipe it off the tile, I don’t know what magic happening. After we grouted the walls and floor, about 3 hours were dedicated on hands and knees with a scrub brush, it was a Cinderella moment. Also baking soda and vinegar works for everything.

Electrical has also been finished, and I picked out the best light fixture, it took a little convincing for Seth Bathroom Light to agree. I think every bathroom needs a little glam, and this one definitely meets the requirements.

Drywall has gone up, and I did all of the mudding myself. This is one of the things that my construction experiences sister and brother in-law suggested we hire someone, and I completely understand why. It was definitely a challenge, but after doing the wall patches and built in, my skills have increased.

And finally paint has gone on the walls. And thanks to family help (Thanks Debbie and Tom!), the bathroom is primed and ready for color!

Lots of multitasking has been going on. The upstairs floors have been sanded curtesy of Luke, and thanks to Gerry the edges have also been sanded down in our master bedroom. Guestroom walls have been mudded and partially primed.

We’ve had a couple work parties, John and Aina helped and put in drywall in the repaint our antique store medicine cabinet find. We had a pop in visit from Portland when Musa came to visit and he put in some insulation. Even my nephew Adam came and worked on the bathroom built in. It’s a family affair!

More posts to come, and sooner than three months from now 🙂