Parquetry Floors

Polly goes to work on the parquetry floors.  We wanted to cut the old finish, but not really sand the floor.  She sanded and I finished.

The Bosch ROS65VC-6 6-Inch Pad Rear-Handle Random Orbit Sander with Vibration Control is awesome.  Really.  The variable speed makes a difference, and the tool is really easy to handle. The grey hose seen in the image can be directly connected to the sander, thus nearly eliminating the dust when used with the "holed" sanding discs.

Small trim piece (pine) used to transition the two floors.

Floor with a poly coat.  The wrong type of poly, however.  More on that next...

Still catching up

We (meaning me, Christopher) have not done the due diligence to keep up with posting--as we have been still continually at work on the house...The work depicted here is several weeks old...

The plumbers were in to finish the fit-out. 

The sink drain tail-piece we purchased (came with) our Delta faucet is PVC...Error on our part--but at the time when we bought the faucet, there was a change-over in Home Depot--to a low-flow faucet mix.  This meant that we had little choice of the faucets...

In the workshop--now moved to the basement.  You are looking at a transition (saddle) being fabricated to transition from the bathroom floor to the hallway.  I used a stock HD oak saddle and ripped it in half--slightly off-set.  Then stacked the pieces, glued, and tack-nailed the pieces together.

Here is the clean-up of the floor.  Note the pieces of Ditra and the stainless "T" Schluter Reno-T transition ready to go in.

Poof!  the finished product.  I used two pieces of Ditra, layered under the transition, secured with Liquid Nails, to fill in the gap.  A clear silicon was used to fill the gap between the wood and tile, then the Schluter Reno-T was fitted in. 

I left the plastic protective coating on the Schluter Reno-T as we needed to stain and finish the threshold.

We are happy with how it turned out.

Floors,stain, and finish

We are moving closer to completion, finally.  We did make a couple of mistakes which we are correcting, albeit painfully.  

We decided not to put vinyl tile down on the floor--over several layers of mixed-medium floor covering...so, here we are with a cut floor and with a dark walnut-esque Minwax^® Wood Finish™ Jacobean 2750 stain. 

After staining and finishing with poly, I cut the floor with 220 grit.  Not a great choice.  The unevenness of the floor created unevenness in the finish.  I had to re-stain....

After re-staining

Close-up of the original floor.  The wood is extremely hard.  Think about it, It was placed down in 1910.  It was harvested from 30, 40, 50 year old trees.  So the wood is really old...  Yes, we did not do a great job of cutting the floor--note the scrape lines in the wood at the top of the image--really hard wood, so the additional sanding(s) (using hand sanders) did not smooth out the rough cut by the floor edger sander...

Nice look we think.

With the full sunlight coming in from the skylight.

Sunbeam.

Rustic...a euphemism for not perfectly finished...

 

Christmas was good to the house

The house is festive! Look for next year to have additional decorations, lights, and maybe a blow-up Snoopy!

First floor nearly complete

Polly painting the first floor bathroom.  She was the main force behind getting the space finished.

Nice clean lines.  Well done, Polly.

small update on first floor progress

The first floor apartment is coming along, albeit slowly, as we are really only working on the weekends.  Too much life is getting in the way of getting to the finish line quickly.

Polly has been the master on the tile in the bathroom!  I mix the thin-set, and she goes to town!  More images and postings after this weekend's final (hopefully) tiling push.

This is the sink wall--note the heat riser pipes going to the second floor.  No way to enclose them without a major re-rout of the risers or a major loss of space...The two pipes to the right of the risers will be the wall-mount panel radiator supply and return.  The other pipes are for the sink.

Note the accent tile, which flows around the room.  Nice choice by Polly, as it will pick-up the floor's black-n-white pattern.  Again, we waterproofed with Schluter's Kerdi and Ditra products on the walls and floor respectively.

Kitchen cabinets are getting a freshening up with white paint, new silver hardware, and shelf-paper.  The back-splash tries to tie in the soon to be slate/concrete grey colored flooring tiles and the base cabinets with the existing cream counter top and wall board above the cabinets.

Unexpected Roof Renovation

Well, it was not totally unexpected...

The monsoon rain(s) of August caused water penetration under the gutter at the back of the house.  Water made its way into the kitchen from an overflowing gutter, and unsealed fascia board and brick. 

The gutter repair was quoted out at about $1200.  To repair the gutter, the roof needed to be cut back and a new fascia installed. 

OK, so this prompted us to consider re-surfacing the roof.  In order to accomplish this properly, the coping stones would need to be replaced, so the roofing membrane material (GAF roll cold-adhesive adhered with a white pebble granular coating) could be extended up under the coping stones, thus giving a complete seal.  

And, while doing the roof, the skylight should be replaced with a vented one...and a new roof-hatch...all told, $7700.  Two days work with a crew of 5-8.  

We chose Joseph Ashley Roofing Contractors (DBA:  ACJ Remodeling, Inc.)   Joseph has been in business for himself since 1984--Italian boy from Staten Island.  He has a steady crew of workers--no day labor here.  He told us his son is also in the business.  He's personable and no-nonsense.  

Below are the images of the work over the two days (Aug 31 @ 91 degrees and September 1, 2012, at a slightly lower, 89 degrees).  I was hanging with the crew on the roof for the duration--8-10 hours a day.  

Old Skylight.  No Vent...

Old coping stones.  The roof was laid up to the underside of the stones, and not up and under them.  This was done back in October 2009.

Old copper gutter.

New aluminum gutter arriving.

Close-up of the stones...patched and cracking.

Demo begins.

Wall in front of house just crumbles.  There would be a re-build of each of these walls before the new coping stones could be installed.

Wall on north side.

Continued removal of crumbling mortar and bricks.

Messy...

Cutting back the old roof.

Old gutter removal.

The bricks just pulled out from under the old gutter--no mortar left...

Rolling on new membrane.  A modified adhesive was troweled onto the old roof, and the new membrane was applied.

Coping stones arrive in the afternoon of Aug. 31.

Flashing cement and fiberglass mesh used to seal around roof protrusions.

8:30am, Sat. Sept 1st.   Preparation of mortar mix.

Removal of old skylight.  Main roof membrane all applied.

Old skylight atop old brick from walls, atop old hatch.

Ready for rebuild.

New Skylight--note vent.

Repaired south wall.

Repairing north wall.

Prepping for coping stones.

North wall replaced.

Finished skylight from inside.

One continuous roll of roofing material is applied to the parapet walls and lapped over the top and over the main roof.  The material was applied using a heavy-duty flashing cement, Bulldog brand.

Finished coping stones, sealed neatly.

Finished, except for clean-up.  Note new flashing around the roof hatch.

Slathering the chimney with flashing cement for good measure.

Company van says it all.