Furniture Progress

So here is a dry fit of the table I am making for the dining room. The inspiration came from Jean Prouve's table. His work blends a severe simplicity with function. It is no surprise that he created one of the first prefabricated houses. I am also hand planing a massive piece of walnut for a coffee table. The piece is 18" wide by 8' long by 2 inches thick. I am going to use the whole slab for the piece. I will upload images as they come.

Ok, so this is a long time coming

I have been out of the blogging groove for a bit and have finally completed my finals with my students. I can get back to working on the house. I have a month off and plan to do as much as funds will allow. Kat and I have been through the ideas and we have come up with the following: 1. We are desperate to get the furniture that we want into the house, so I am working on making that. Below is an early photo of my friend holding the legs to the new dining room table up for a look. I am also designing two side chairs that will be cushioned with white mohair and made of walnut. More on this as developments come. 2. I will be doing the refinish on the dining room floor. The living room floor looks fantastic and I am eager to continue this process of getting these pine floors restored. 3. The guest bedroom needs a slight overhaul. There are these makeshift closets that were built in there that look like a cross between phone booths and holding cells for death row inmates. I cannot stand them and they will be the first to go. Floors, painting and patching will be in order up there. 4. The kitchen gets put on the back burner until August when my summer teaching comes to an end. That will be a major project and will require lots of dough.

I will take pics this weekend to show off the finished rock wall, the living room floors and the new paint in the dining room. I will also include any finds we manage at the College Hill yard sale this weekend! It should be a good one.

Final coat on living room floor today!

I will update the floor photos today just before the final coat goes down. I have been excited to see the first coat of satin on the floor in a dry state. Last coat today and then we can move on to other rooms in the house. More on this later. 70 degrees today!

Some updates on the wall today

Todays plans

I am out to the house today to put on the first coat of satin finish on the floor. This system calls for four coats of the original finish which has a medium sheen or semi gloss like look. If you want to to tone it down a bit and have a more subtle top coat, you can do two coats of original to seal and two coats of satin to create the final look. I am very interested to see what will happen here. The first two coats were sucked right up by the thirsty pine and I can not see much evidence of that semi-gloss like look. I am hoping that the first coat of satin today will begin to reveal what the floor will really look like.

All in all, the floor in the living room seems to be in the best shape. The dining room is going to be another challenge altogether. The previous owners were at the house when we were looking at it and they were filling the gaps in between the boards with durhams rock hard water putty. (In some areas bondo was used) I now have to go through the entire room and carefully chisel this stuff out. With the pine being so soft, this is a very delicate process to keep the boards from being damaged. I will upload some photos of this nightmare as soon as I am brave enough to face it.

I also added some new links to the right. One is a .pdf document on the house that I found online. I think it was prepared by the previous owner and it tells some of the history. The other is a site that details a walking tour of our town. It shows many of the houses that are in our area. Check them out.

Rebuilding the stone wall outside

The stone wall outside had collapsed long before we purchased the house. One of my top priorities was to get this rebuilt as soon as possible. I am currently putting it back together and will have some progress photos to post soon. The stone is mostly dolomite and the edges are razor sharp. Typing this post has not been easy with hands that are covered in band aids. I need to buy some gloves.

Floors......

Before

During

Gary Approves So Far

With one coat of Waterlox Original


So the floors in the living room are almost finished and I had some wavering confidence in how they would turn out. The floors are pine and were polyurethaned a long time ago. Pine and poly do not get along as the pine likes to breath. After a time, the poly will crack, chip and flake off leaving you with bare spots. (You can see this in the first photo above) This floor had some damage to it from the lack of proper care. There was a beautiful pumpkin orange patina though, and I was reluctant to sand it down to "new wood". Considering the damage, the thick poly that was there and the need to open the wood up for the new penetrating oil, I had to take it down some. It was the most responsible choice for the life of the wood. I used a high end dual action sander with a HEPA vac by Festool. This is a very high quality piece of machinery. There was literally no dust whatsoever while I was doing this work and I felt very lucky to have it. It gave me far more control than if I had a commercial sander which is much more aggressive.

I am using Waterlox Original Sealer and I will top coat with Waterlox Satin. These products are designed to penetrate the wood much like an oil, and at the same time seal the wood but with breathability. Here is a link to their site....I feel I can endorse them because I am having success with their product. I also think that the results so far are worth the $120 per gallon price tag. This is a very good product. I will post some final pictures when the top coats are completed. There are 4 coats in all; 2 Original and 2 Satin. More to come on this...........