I should probably have a pun for this...

Well, last night was supposed to be about the kitchen, but I got sidetracked, and made it about putting things generally where they belong.  That got boring, so I distracted myself with a couple of small projects.

1.  This equipment rack is way too big, bulky, and ugly for my new studio space.

Plus, I really bought it for a time when all my stuff (including my stereo, game systems, VCR/DVD/BluRay, turntable, etc all needed to live in a closet in a single room.  Now, all that stuff is getting scattered, and this rack doesn't even fit in the closet (future posts will make clear why I want to stuff my rack gear in a closet at all).

For scale

So I went and found some scraps from the bulkhead I removed over the holiday, spent about 8 minutes with the miter saw and the drill press,  3 minutes with a handheld rotary sander, just to get the splinters out, and another 12 attaching and leveling the equipment. It ain't too pretty, but it is solid, and it works:

What I love about this project is that it is really incredibly easy with a few common tools, and it is the cheapest sturdy thing in the world.  I just cut a 15 degree mitre in two 2x2s, then lined them up with each other on the mitre saw to cut their square ends to the exact same length.  I trimmed the two bases the same way (side by side on the mitre saw) from the scrap cutting down the rails.  Then I simply drilled a pocket hole down through each rail at a 15 degree angle (did this on the drill press, but a kreg jig would have been faster) so the screw would land perpendicular to the base piece.  Then I attached the rail to the base with a Kreg blue screw using a square bit in a hand driver.  I am a little blown away by how strong that joint is.

The two bases/rails are only held to each other by the rack gear.  It's all steel and aluminum, so it is fine that way.

I also hung the projector screen.

And put down a rug

These many tools were not used in the installation of this beautiful, possibly non-square (non parallelogram, even) rug. 

The Foyer...

...is so abused by salt and water and stress that refinishing is not in the cards.  I mean, I guess I could sand and clear coat it, and call it "rustic", but it is a very difficult area to isolate in order to contain sawdust, and it will look like crap, anyway.  

Options: 

1.  replace hardwood (still requires sanding, so, NO.  Not again this winter.)
2. Tile (requires cement backer board, and so the foyer will be an inch above every other room)
3. Adhesive vinyl:  Not a long-term solution, and will suck to remove when I am ready to maybe sand, maybe replace hardwood, or even replace the vinyl in 5-10 years. 
4. Laminate: It's an entryway, and destined to get wet a lot.  I already am greatly concerned about the previous owners' brilliant idea of laminate in the downstairs bath.  Not going to continue that trend. 
5. That leaves (I think): epoxied pennies (too permanent/boring to apply), or a rug.  But wait!

I forgot all about the very finish of the Joyce Rothermel Community Room at work!  

Resilient Vinyl Plank

This stuff cuts with a circ saw or a jigsaw or a miter saw just like wood, only easier.  I also drilled some in the drill p[ress, but not for any reason other than to see how it works. You can whittle it with a utility knife, and it is waterproof, and really, really durable. Fitting and trimming took about 12 hours, including all the trips up and downstairs to cut. My pedometer estimates 3 miles walked INSIDE my house in a single day. $2.80/sq ft. This is "Rustic Hickory" Smartcore flooring from Lowe's.  5.5 mm thick.  Nice stuff. 

(This is not the permanent home of this white fridge.  My other one is acting up, so I have held off selling the frigidaire until I determine if the SS fridge can be fixed.)

 I'm thinking a radiator box project is in my future.

Here is the vinyl and the ebonized oak, separated by a hardwood carpet transition strip. The strip will be waxed with the floor, and will turn about the color of the hickory.

Saga of the Floors II: It's never that simple.

Sure, I don't think the words "cautious" or "methodical" are the first to come to mind when someone says "Josh Murphy".  I've cultivated a bit of a reputation for being spontaneous, and for not following conventions all the time, for better or worse.  But I try not to fool around with wood, so I did several tests with my Vinegar/Steel wool solution, and determined it was ready to go. I then diluted it several times to allow me to fine-tune the ebonizing process, and added a drop of dish soap to break surface tension to allow better absorption.

So I mopped it on the whole LR floor.










And I got:












(Reminder: "There are chemical processes going on here that I don't understand.")

Maybe I should just keep it that way.  Sure as hell will distract from the stains.

Second coat.

This is no good.  Time to cook up a stronger batch, in a hurry:

Coat 3, the next day.  Grr.  Must be residual oxalic acid. I'll keep adding iron to the floor, and eventually, it will use up all the oxalate. Right?

Okay.  Not bad.  

What will it look like finished?

Still splotchy,. though.  

Maybe some baking soda?

(Sadly missing are pictures of the insanity that followed.  Baking soda turned a whole section super-brown overnight, and necessitated a full 80 and 100 grit resanding of the LR)

Skipping a few meanwhiles, here we are after monocoat: I intentionally sanded down some of the ebonizing to blend out some of the perma-bleached areas.

My whole house smells like linseed oil.  Which is WAY better than smelling like denatured alcohol, thinner, acetone, and/or assorted VOCs

Short story: should have sanded way deeper, and none of this would have been so hard. Tough to do when your grain runs in all different directions.

Interlude II: I may have scraped too hard.

I may have scraped that wallpaper a bit too aggressively, because by about 1a.m., I had this going on:

I scraped all the paper off the bulkhead, but some was sticking to the bottom lip, and I couldn't get it off, so I slid my knife in to cut it, and it slipped right in!  Turns out they build the bulkheads out of old 2x4s ripped to 2x2, tempered hardboard (masonite, clipboard material), and about a pound of nails per joint.

 You're next, buddy:

 So, I am guessing they made this crappy bulkhead system, and lowered their cabinets so the tiny folk they were could reach stuff, circa 1981.  Just a guess.

Also guessing they never redid their kitchen between when they bought it in 1972, and when they built the bulkhead.

So, now all the bulkheads are out, but the walls and ceiling they were hiding are all crumbling.  Jerks. Time to drywall.

Should I just buy an unfinished cabinet for my island, instead of watching craigslist like a hawk?

(Break for Xmas: a walk around Hazelwood and Oakland.)

AND now it's time to fix the ceiling in the Dining Room.

Interlude to the Floor: Building a beam and other diversions.

While I let the whole floor thing process, I still have heavy work to be done where I ripped out that wall, with all the different ceilingf heights, etc.

First off, how about a temporary light switch for the dining room:

And I keep losing tools, so let's fix that:

And I should square up and drywall those giant holes in the wall that I made tearing out the other wall:

And build a box beam to conceal the ceiling height disparity where I took out the wall..  And while I'm at it, might as well run the final light switch for the Dining Room and a box for lights over the peninsula I want to build:

This beam is oak plywood, and I cut the sides using a kreg jig that is made for parallel cuts.  I would have just clamped a straight edge, but I didn't have any...

The overhead light box and the outlet are protected by the same gfci.  Just in case I am standing in a puddle and I accidentally snap the plastic off the light switch, exposing the live current, I guess.  Also, it was easier that way. 

 THREE DIFFERENT CEILING HEIGHTS! One in the kitchen, one in the main DR, and one where that ridiculous closet was. 

Light fixture arrived from Amazon a few days later.  Looking classy:

Note I still have not finished the beam.  I want it to get aged by all the construction debris.  No, seriously.

You know what's getting on my nerves now, though?  that wallpaper border up top there.  I hate wallpaper borders.  Hate them.  I'll scrape it off, starting at the other side of the kitchen.

So, I'm just going to fast-forward the floor saga here.  Below, an example of staining I found after floor was sanded.  Tried further sanding; no luck.  Tried Peroxide; no luck.  

 I wish I had pics of me preparing oxalic acid on a hotplate on the porch in full protective gear.  Below is a test of oxalic acid on a stain.  "Before is the botom center, and "after" is the dead center.  Seems to work! Let's apply this bery dangerous chemical to every stain!

Same area, post-bleaching with oxalic acid:

 There are chemical processes going on here that I don't understand.  Note the phosphorescence and the "pucker" marks near where the staples were. What was once a dark stain is now a bright yellow...stain. And in other areas, there are stains that don't want to come up.

Imagine, in your mind, a series of photos in which I don the protective suit and mask, and sand the living hell out of the dining room and living room floors, by hand, using a 5 inch orbital palm sander, on my knees for hours, to get to all the stray dips and finish, and to attach the scratches and stains, etc, and, most importantly, to try to remove the yellowing, which I can only imagine is residual oxalic acid..  This takes a couple days, doing 300+ sq ft with 50 grit paper, then running out and using 60 grit.  And yet the living room still has stains.

So, a week or so back, I prepared for this contingency by soaking some steel wool in vinegar.  The resultant ferrous acetate is a salt that likes very much to react with tannins in oak, resulting in darkjening.  The very same chemical process (free iron ions reacting with tannins, also used to make "oak gall" ink) is what CAUSES water stains on oak. So maybe I can just stain the whole thing to match the original chemical stains?

Let's test an inconspicuous area, in the foyer:

Well, it definitely stains oak!  Maybe I'll just stain the LR and leave the DR natural?  The DR is looking decent now.  If I darkent the whole LR, though, I'll have to mask off the dining room.  And as long as the masking tape is out:

Note the LR floor looks really clean in this pic.  The lacquer is finally all up.  This is one of the least stained areas of this floor.  If you look closely, you can still see some ugly splotches. Maybe I need to take a break and think on this chemical staining thing... Besides, I just realized I have to go back over both floors with 80 and 100 grit paper, and I have a bunch of work to do that I can't do while the floor is drying.  The Saga of the Floors will return! (Saga of the Floors II: I really just did that).

I've been so bad about updating this, and I haven't been great about documenting,either.  Much has happened.  I'll try to keep it chronological and break it into a few pages.  Weird to think it is well over a month later, and I just now finished the floors, but details can be sneaky that way.  Well, enough spoilers; let's see what I can dig up from my photos:

Next time I rent a U-Sand, I am getting 12-grit sandpaper with it.  On the positive side, I removed so little of the floor that it still has a good 3-4 full sandings left in it.  treated properly, that's at least 30 years, and at most over 200 years.

Lots of water/pet stains; lots of uneven areas where lacqer/shellac finish is left on surface.