Sunday, December 3, 2006

Drying Time...

Well I got the first coat of the floor finish steel wooled down smooth and the second coat of finish applied on Saturday. It dried a LOT better than that first coat. Just got it steelwooed down and will apply the third coat of finish tonight. It has warmed up a bit so I am going to move the outside plants into the workshop to give them a chance to survive the winter!
I just copied an earlier entry from my on-line journal that detalis this projcet from the beginning....

Prepwork and Wallpaper
Monday, November 06, 2006

There has been so much going on as of late. Last Wednesday morning I ordered a new flat screen monitor for the computer. I just missed the rebate offer that took $100.00 of the list price for the month of October. I was right in my hunch this rebate would be extended. It was!!! I was still able to save a bunch! Here is where I get my mind blown away…the doorbell rang before 9:00 a.m. Friday. It was the monitor being delivered…less than two days after placing my order! The deliveryman was so funny. After handing me the monitor he stood there sniffing…. “I smell bacon!” he says. I laugh and tell him that I had just finished up breakfast: three slices of bacon, two eggs, raisin toast, orange juice and coffee!! He just smiled and said how good it all smelled!

I’m amazed at the clarity of the screen on this new monitor. After using that tiny 15” screen for the past three and a half years, the new 19” screen seems HUGE!

Work on the back room has been going slowly. I’ve gotten burned out, but I want to have it and the house put back together before the holidays. There will not be a faux bamboo washstand in the near future to put back there. I was able to follow the auction on line for the stand I was interested in. I had left what I thought was an outrageously high bid considering the condition of the piece. I was floored to see it sell for nearly DOUBLE that bid at $2,750. That price is before the sales tax and 10% buyers premium is even tacked on. That is way out of my league!!

Sunday I pretty much finished up on the walls. Next is filling the “nail dimples” and raised paper seams on the ceiling. The ceiling fan has had a wobble that has driven me nuts since its installation. I have spent hours playing around with weights to try and get the blades balanced. I was able to correct a lot of the problem, but never to my satisfaction. I need to remove the fan blades in order to do the ceiling work. This will be a perfect time to weigh out the blades and get each one to the exact weight. Only problem is, I don’t have a scale. The perfect solution will be to go to the post office and use the digital scale in the self serve set up for weighing envelopes and small packages. There will not be anyone around on a Sunday afternoon. I was so annoyed to enter the post office lobby carrying the fan blades, weights, and other things to find the scales are gone. I’m finally going to have to break down and get a scale of my own. Selling junk again on E-Bay I do need a scale for estimating shipping costs.

Working on the full ceiling means I had to take the bed down. It is such an ordeal, the dust bunnies were everywhere! Advertisements 100 years ago for iron and brass beds placed great emphasis on how much easier they were to maintain and keep clean. The wide wooden side rails on the bed frame harbor a ton of dust and lint. I know I really don’t pay attention to that kind of thing till I’m forced to take some kind of action and then I’m horrified!

I set up sleeping in the den on the sofa. It is not roomy as I’d like, but it sure is a lot easier and safer than trying to navigate the cluttered stairway to the spare bedroom upstairs! The computer is also in this back room. The cats and I enjoyed listening to Jack Benny radio programs before bed! I found a fantastic site with a bunch of programs you can listen to for free!!! Jack Benny Programs

I had been playing with wallpaper and color samples all weekend getting just the right combination picked out. I made up my mind I was going to order the paper today. (Monday) Stumpy was such a help as usual during all this!


I was all set to give Bradbury and Bradbury http://www.bradbury.com/index.html a call when the morning mail was delivered. There was an envelope from Bradbury and Bradbury! I did not have any samples on order: sure enough, here was samples of their new freize paper I have never seen. It is perfect for this room. Now I have to change everything around again! Talk about timing!

The "Rookwood Frieze" on the left is the new choice now over the center paper and border. the brown of the trees seem to bring out the natural woodwork and the muted colors seem more appropriate for a bedroom. Now I have to determine what paper will go below the chair rail, and paint color for the "middle" section.


Well, it is time to post this and get to the Y for my workout….

Friday, December 1, 2006

Interesting Problem

In my last post I detailed how I stripped down an old pine floor and finished that post with applying the first coat of finish. I had hoped that by now I'd be happily reporting things went according to plan and I had just put down the third and last coat of finish. No such luck! It has been very warm here for the past week. That is nice for having the doors and windows open, but the high humidity did not help that first coat of finish dry.
Normally the finish will dry overnight. It has been over two days now and that first coat of finish is still tacky in spots. Close examination of the floor revealed the first half of the floor I striped with the Crown Stripper dried hard and even. The second half of the floor that I stripped with the Strypeeze dried blotchy and is still tacky in spots. Could that stripper have left something on the wood to retard the finish curing? The entire floor was cleaned down with mineral spirits to remove any remaing residue. It is only the Strypeeze section of the floor that has problems......
I just turned on the furnace to see if that will help speed up the drying...I'll give that section another day to dry. At least I'll be able to steel wool down the dried section of the floor today.
It is problems like this that make these projects "interesting".
To be continued.....