On Saturday Matt (Peckham Floors) brought over the epoxy I'm using to fill the cracks in the wood floor he's going to be refinishing next week.

The wood floors, which we believe to be original to the house (and thus, about 100 yrs old) are pretty thin from previous sandings, and show some cracks and chips, in addition to some significant gaps between the boards.

Filling these with epoxy will make a solid surface, in addition to stabilizing the old boards.

There was a combination of plaster and drywall dust embedded in these cracks that had to be cleaned out before filling it with epoxy. The shop vac didn't do the trick, neither did two types of shop brushes. Some metal brushes I'd originally bought for stripping paint off the moldings did the best job of getting crud out of the cracks.

So I literally went over the floors with a fine toothed (metal) comb and brushed out the crud, vacuumed it up, and marked the spot with blue painter's tape.

The next step was filling each crack with epoxy. It came in a caulk-gun type format - though much more expensive per tube than caulk!! I cleaned everything out on Saturday & finished the epoxy on Sunday.

The first choice color for the hallway & library looked like watered down Mountain Dew (BM's Rainforest Dew), so Mom helped me run through some other color choices & I selected Montgomery White. It looks creamy in the hallway, but more yellow in the back library. I cut in and did the first coat in the library today; it went pretty quickly since I didn't have to paint the one wall that will be covered by bookshelves.

Pic 1: cleaned & marked cracks.
Pic 2: me at work
Pic 3: filled cracks
Pic 4: freshly painted library

So I already covered last weekend when I ran down to Detroit to get the first half of my IKEA cabinets. The people there were really cool and let me leave the other half to be picked up Tuesday when Dad would be down there. My awesome Dad, exhibiting his mad Tetris-skill packing abilities got the rest of it into the Jeep when he was down there. The first two pics are of that mess (which includes a bunch of cabinets, a dishwasher & a microwave). The things my Dad won't do for his girls! (c:

Poor Brad was sick for the first couple days this week, but came back like a champ Wednesday and got the rest of the bathroom plumbing and both the library & bath windows installed yesterday & today.
I meant to go to knitting group on Tuesday evening, but had forgotten my knitting, so that ended up being a night to catch up on laundry & other stuff.

Wednesday I made a run up to the Lowe's in Gaylord to get the extra-long skinny window for the library. It's about 6" shorter than what was there previously, but it will look good. Standing outside, we could tell the current window was in at an angle (like many of the things in this old house). We joked that maybe it was just level with the floor inside...sometimes it's hard to tell what you should make things level with in an old place.

The bathroom window was originally a slider; after all the mold issues in the bathroom I wanted something that wouldn't trap water like the grooves on the slider would.
My original thought was to find an awning style window, but ran into two issues - they were much more expensive and the lead time would have them arriving far after I'd moved into the house.
We ended up getting a solid piece of low-e, Argon filled glass & Brad built a box with an inverted "v" at the bottom so the water will get channeled away from the glass on both the interior & exterior. The box for the glass is made from some sort of vinyl stuff so it won't rot like the old window did.

What I've learned this week: You can shake the new iPods to get it to shuffle to the next song. With the iPod in your pocket, you can get the iPod to shuffle by dancing (badly). This method of advancing the track is superior to setting down tools & removing gloves to hit fast-forward.

Pics 1 & 2: Dad's packing job.
Pic 3: Bathroom window & framing for shower/tub faucets
Pic 4: Newly installed bathroom window.

Had some internets issues yesterday, so two updates today. Yesterday I muscled down most of the wood paneling in the library. The paneling stopped where the drop ceiling was, so it all needed to go before the drywall can go up.

Pictures:
1: Before
2: blocked in piping for upstairs bathroom
3: exposed wall next to window

What I learned today:
Close your mouth before yanking on nails in old plaster.
The idea of painting this room dark brown/practically black was definitely out after feeling how much of a black hole it was with the exposed walls.

I loathe drop ceilings.
I don't know why. Maybe it's because I associate them with office buildings or finished basements. But I knew I didn't want them in my house. Luckily, there are only two offending rooms in the house: the kitchen and the little room off the dining room which I plan to make my library. I could say that it's going to be "the den" or "the office", but "the library" just sounds sweet. And those 14 boxes of books in the storage unit have to go somewhere.
So today I took all the drop-ceiling tiles out so I could see just what was going on behind the scenes. The kitchen wasn't too bad, other than one corner that had some water damage. It looks like old damage, but I'll check with Brad-the-awesome-contractor tomorrow to make sure. I was happy there's electric in the ceiling where I wanted it. The ceiling was likely put up in 1980, based on the pristine extra tile sitting up there, wrapped in 1980 newspaper. Did you know that Jimmy Durante died?












The library is a little more problematic. From what I can tell, the ceiling and wood paneling went in around the same time. The paneling only goes up to the drop ceiling; above that is some iffy plaster/wallboard and plaster lathe. I'm guessing this remodel also put in the upstairs bathroom (PVC pipe). I'll get the real scoop from Brad on what's to be done tomorrow.