Tag: Memoir

No place like home

Monica Lee1 Comment

Our story so far: My husband and I spent many months renovating a 126-year-old Methodist church into a residence, and we were getting close to wrapping up refinishing the original wood floors.

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Chapter 33

We had spent so many months thinking of the church as a work site, a project, a financial puzzle and unending to-do list, we had forgotten it was our home.

Home. The very word makes a person breathe easier. This place—this sawdusty, tool-infested, unfinished blank slate—was going to be our home, a place of refuge, a thing of beauty, a space to put up our feet and enjoy a roasty cup of coffee or an ice cold beer.

There was a moment at the beginning of summer after we’d finally squished the spiral stairway into the church and erected it in the corner, a moment when I was reminded, ah, yes, this place was going to be something special.

And then we went back to sanding floors.

unfinished railing
When we were gone for a long weekend, the metalworkers brought the almost-finished railing to the church for final measurements. You can see the basket spindles are still unpainted here.

But, as fortune had it, we went with the same spiral stairway company to fabricate our balcony railing. And when they installed the railing at few weeks later, those same feelings came rushing back. I think it was the instant gratification. Instead of building 150 walls or applying twenty coats of paint or driving back and forth to Home Depot, the railing got installed in less than two hours, and then it was finished. All that was left for us to do was dust it.

“This is really ours,” Tyler said to me as we sat by ourselves in our rolling office chairs in the great room at the end of the day.

“It’s going to be beautiful,” I said.

“Yup.”

We were in a good place, figuratively as well as literally. As we coasted down the side of the mountain that was finishing the floors, we had something finished to admire at the end of many days.

finished railing
Here’s a shot of the finished balcony railing. If you look closely in this “Where’s Waldo” picture, you’ll find the two office chairs in the great room Tyler and I frequently used to admire our work at the end of the day.

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Tomorrow: Summer flowers. See them here.

We age not by years but by stories

Monica Lee1 Comment

Our story so far: Tyler scored a deal on enough polyurethane to cover the floors of the converted church and then some.

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hall of history before flooring
Here’s a look at the original flooring in the hall of history, including a putty-filled patch job there on the right.

The floor of the Hall of History presented a unique challenge. The Hall of History, you’ll remember, was the fifteen-foot-long hall that led from the sanctuary to the back stairway where we imagined we could hang pictures of the church throughout history on its expansive, now drywalled walls.

But, oh the floor. The pine planks were certainly original to the 1894 construction of that portion of the church and had once been part of the entryway. Count how many feet crossed that threshold on the way to Sunday school or worship services! Imagine the Sunday best shoes worn by parents holding newly baptized babies or couples freshly married! Several repairs and patches in the flooring were evident. Besides ground-in dirt, it was covered in paint of various colors—yellow, red and aqua—and sported huge gashes, divots and seams. One had to squint hard to see the potential.

We considered an affordable wood-like tile or perhaps carpeting, but we hesitated spending good money on a hallway floor that would most certainly be mostly covered by a rug runner. So Tyler tried sanding it, only his goal on this floor was to reveal its history (appropriate to the Hall of History) and even it out.

It wasn’t exactly attractive (or perfectly level) when he was done, but we found the character we hoped to feature. With new thresholds and baseboards, the rustic floor might be described by a forgiving critic as charming.

hall of history after flooring
The hallway after two coats of polyurethane. It will need a new threshold into the great room (bottom of pic), but you won’t look perfect when you’re older than 100 either.

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Tomorrow: Chapter 33 opens. The beginning of the end. Read it here.

I smell a sale

Monica Lee1 Comment

Our story so far: A couple of coats of clear polyurethane was all we needed to show off the wood floors in the master suite and on the second floor of the old Methodist church we were turning into our home.

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In the sanctuary-slash-great-room, we had a lot going on already. Between the ceiling beams, the fireplace and the kitchen cabinets, the floor played only a supporting role. Plus, its rustic patina didn’t need any more attention being called to it. So we went with a driftwood stain that had a hint of green in it; this would tone down the red in the Douglas fir planks creating a neutral backdrop.

Now after days of sanding, we would be spending days applying stain and polyurethane. The hardest part about this was enduring the odor. Do you remember what the school hallways smelled like on the day the janitors applied vanish to the gymnasium floors? Sort of a pungent chemical stench crossed with a tobacco barn? The church stunk to high heaven, but it lasted only a day or two. Tyler’s obsession with industrial sized fans played in our favor here. He threw open the doors of the church and invited the fresh summer air in.

A feud between Minwax and Home Depot over which Big Box retailer could have exclusivity on the Minwax brand proved to be a windfall for us. One day when Tyler was renting a floor sander yet again, he spied an endcap display offering polyurethane for half price. He bought every last can.

polyurethane sale
This is not a story display; this is Tyler’s stash of half-price polyurethane in our great room.

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Tomorrow: How we paid tribute to history with the Hall of History floor. Read about it here. And you might be pleased to learn it’s the last installment of Chapter 32 about sanding floors.

Natural beauty

Monica Lee1 Comment

Our story so far: After sanding floors for months at the old Methodist church, we spent a little time filling the seams.

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Our next hurdle was stain. Fortunately, choosing a stain color proved to be much easier than choosing paint colors for the trim and walls. We decided to go without stain on the maple in the master suite and on the pine on the second floor. A couple of coats of clear polyurethane was all we needed to show off the hardwood.

master suite during sanding
Here’s how the master bedroom floor look at the beginning of the sanding process.
master suite with one coat
Here’s how the master bedroom floor looked after Tyler filled the seams and applied one coat of polyeurethane.
second floor half sanded
Here’s a picture of the second floor after half of it had been sanded the first time. This was even before drywall was up.
second floor with one coat
This is the second floor after one coat of polyurethane.

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Tomorrow: Luck equals preparation plus opportunity. Read about it here.

Finishing floors is like sausage; it is better not to see them being made

Monica Lee1 Comment

Our story so far: We spent lots of time and money sanding the floors of the 126-year-old Methodist church we were turning into our home.

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Now that we could see finally see the raw wood, it was time to fill some of the seams. On newer wood floors, polyurethane alone would do just fine, but as our floors aged, some of our seams had widened.

Tyler inspected literally every inch of flooring as we proceeded. Ever the Virgo perfectionist, he was a harsh task master. Near the end of the sanding phase, he directed me to remove all the dried water putty in the seams of the maple flooring in the master suite. Someone had used putty as some point to fill some of the wider seams, and it appeared white against all the wood. Still “wide” was less than an eighth of an inch. Leaning on my knees while seated on a rolling office chair, I used chisels and tiny screwdrivers to pry the plaster out of every last seam in those two rooms.

sawdust plus poly
Boil, boil, toil and trouble, sawdust mix and cauldron bubble.

Instead of using water putty, Tyler used a trick he’d learned on an earlier project: He mixed the last layer of sawdust (which was little bits of wood, not that horrible glue and varnish) with clear polyurethane and squeegeed the goop over the floors (maple sawdust mix on the maple floors, pine sawdust mix on the pine floors, and never the twain shall meet). Some of it had to be sanded off again, but the seams were therefore filled with a sawdust mixture that was essentially the same as the planks.

squeegee sawdust
Tyler with a squeegee, pushing sawdusty polyurethane over the bedroom floor.

For the very worst seam on the second floor, more than a quarter inch in width, Tyler stuffed twine before filling it with sawdusty polyurethane. It couldn’t be hidden so we went with the theory that it added character.

twine filled seam
It’s not pretty, but it’ll do.

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Tomorrow: Choosing stain. See how it turns out here.

 

What price glory

Monica Lee1 Comment

Our story so far: My husband and I were sanded 2,200 square feet of hardwood in the old Methodist church we were turning into our home.

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Sanding floors was too physically difficult to perform two days in a row (at least for 50somethings). So on “rest” days, Tyler, St. Johnny and I accomplished other duties: Cleaning up the basement and sorting wood, buying windows and ceiling fans, building feature walls, pickling wood planks for the second floor ceiling, buying more sandpaper and a thousand and one other tasks.

Eventually though, the end—or clean raw wood—was in sight. Curious and relieved to be nearing the end of sanding, I added up how much we’d spent on sandpaper, and I was surprised to figure out we’d spent hundreds of dollars on sandpaper—nearly a hundred dollars more on sandpaper than on renting the sanders.

Which firmly establishes sanders as the printers of the home improvement world (how much more is spent on print cartridges than the printers!).

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Tomorrow: Emptying and filling seams. Read about it here.

Oh, my aching back

Monica Lee1 Comment

Our story so far: We spent one hot, sawdusty Saturday morning sanding the second floor of the old church we were turning into our home.

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second floor sanded floor
The second floor, post sanding, in the afternoon sun.

After our showers, we were so exhausted we fell back into bed (we got up early, remember) and napped. It was one of those glorious naps during which you sleep so hard that when you wake, you are still paralyzed with slumber. I just lay there for a few minutes savoring my job-well-done accomplishment. Tyler roused, and we determined a late lunch at the nearby Mexican joint would solve our hunger problem most quickly. It was as I attempted to get out of bed that I realized my lower back ached. Not a little I-know-I-worked-hard-today ache, but a big I-think-I’ve-hurt-myself ache.

“Oh, my back hurts,” I said.

“Oh, my back always hurts,” my compassionate husband said.

I was able to get out of bed, get dressed with some trouble and make it to the Mexican joint for lunch, but I couldn’t bend over or babysit for a week because I didn’t trust myself to be able to pick up my granddaughter. My husband quickly realized I was not suffering from any run-of-the-mill back pain and handled sanding duties solo for a long while after that. It took three weeks for my back to return to normal operation. I determined it wasn’t actually the work of sanding that hurt my back but the effort of lifting the super-heavy industrial sander up the steps. This underscored the safety reminder every manual laborer since the age of Doan’s Pills learns: Lift with the legs, not the back.

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Tomorrow: The price of sandpaper. Read about it here.

Vanity before hunger

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Our story so far: My husband and I got up early one Saturday in June to “eat our vegetables first.” We figured we could sand floors on the second floor of the old church for four hours, then enjoy the rest of the day. But we were stymied by a long breakfast and quickly rising temperatures.

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used sanding discs
A new sanding disc surrounded by mastic-encrusted used ones.

The center of the floor was in pretty good shape after the previous sandings, but the edges were thick with mastic. No sooner would I install a new sanding disk on my edger than it would be gummed up with glue, unable to remove any more layers. Up to retrieve another disk, then down on my knees to install it and proceed a few more inches along the edge of the floor.

No sound can be heard above the buzz of one sander let alone two. So there was no music, no conversation, only attention to detail.

I took as few breaks as possible, besides the disk replacement, with the intention of finishing the edges upstairs and then tackling the Hall of History and the mud room on the main floor before having to return the sanders. But I ran out of sanding disks before I got downstairs. And Tyler ran out of energy.

Still, we had to drag the sanders down the stairs, blow clean the devices, hoist them into the truck and haul them back to the rental desk by 11:30. All in the searing high-noon heat and humidity. The pancakes and eggs we had during our extra-long breakfast break provided just enough fuel to meet our deadline. As we climbed back into the truck, Tyler said, “where to for lunch?”

Tyler had no shame, apparently, but we looked a fright. Sweaty, covered in sawdust, my hair all askew from wearing a ventilator and ear muffs all morning.

“I’m not going anywhere for lunch,” I said. “I’m going home to take a shower!”

Tyler obliged my vanity, and I indulged in the best shower of my entire life.

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Tomorrow: Mexican with a side of aspirin. Read about it here.

Saturday chore

Monica Lee1 Comment

Our story so far: We had 2,200 square feet of hardwood to refinish in the 126-year-old Methodist church we were turning into our dream home.

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We’d pretty much agreed, Tyler and I, that we’d do something other than work on the church on weekends—shopping, chores, socializing, resting—but the pressure of finishing the floors began to eat away at our best intentions. We couldn’t install cabinets until we finished the floors, and we couldn’t install countertops until we had cabinets, and we couldn’t have sinks until we had countertops, and we couldn’t have running water until we had sinks.

So one Saturday morning in June, I agreed to sand floors for four hours. If we returned the sander within four hours, we paid less than using it all day. It seemed a good way to get an unappealing chore out of the way first and then enjoy the rest of the day. Plus, we figured to be done before the hottest temperatures of the day, predicted to be in the nineties.

So we got out of bed at 5:30 a.m. and rewarded ourselves with breakfast out. Only the diner we settled on was a cook short and experiencing problems with its electronic ordering system. A thirty-minute treat turned into seventy-five minutes of Chinese water torture. So we didn’t get the sanders rented and into service until eight o’clock.

edger
This is an edge sander. The black parts are handles. Imagine finding a place between your legs for the inflated sawdust-catching bag.

We donned ventilators, safety glasses and ear protection. Tyler used the orbital sander on the second floor, and I used the edger. The sander had so much power and I so little core strength, I could only control it by leaving one knee on the ground and using the other leg and both arms to propel it in the direction I wanted it to go. I probably looked like some sort of middle-aged spider trying to control a panicked fly.

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Tomorrow: Which has higher priority? Hunger or vanity? Read about the dilemma here.

Going through rough patches to achieve great things

Monica Lee1 Comment

Our story so far: The first step in sanding hardwood floors in the church we were turning into our home required a drum sander and 24-grit sandpaper.

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24-grit sandpaper
That’s a drum sander in the background; 24-grit sandpaper nearest, and 36-grit right behind.

Have you ever seen 24-grit sandpaper? I hadn’t. I’d only used the relatively even sheets of sandpaper to smooth edges and surfaces on furniture I painted. How cute. Twenty-four-grit sandpaper is the wicked sumo wrestler of finishing materials—it looked like it had gravel on it and if you got in its way, you’d be flattened.

At this point, I used a floor edger to sand right up to the walls in the sanctuary; this step required the operator to kneel, and since I still had my natural joints, I was elected. Then someone (usually Tyler, but sometimes St. Johnny) used the orbital sander with 60-grit sandpaper going with the grain.

On ordinary wood floors, one might be finished sanding. But we didn’t have ordinary wood floors; we had 126-year-old wood floors. Over the course of a century, the floor had settled everywhere except where the beams in the basement supported the structure. This left narrow grooves in the sanctuary floor that remained untouched by the stand-up sanders. Seated on a rolling flat cart low to the floor, Tyler used a belt sander and a hand-held oscillating sander to smooth out those grooves.

Final pass was with an orbital sander and 80-grit sandpaper.

Of course, vacuuming was required after each sanding step.

And that was just the sanctuary floor. We had to do the whole thing all over again in the master suite (with maple flooring, which is much harder than pine), in the Hall of History and on the second floor. In total, we had about 2,200 square feet of hardwood to finish.

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Tomorrow: Sanding the second floor. Read about it here.