Restoration Sans Destruction: Hardwood

And this is my first post here on our new(ish) blog! Allow me to introduce myself. I am the Andrew occasionally spoken of in Gina's entries and half of the Odd Fellows Wrecking Crew (More than half, by weight).

Here at the Odd Fellows House we have a number of projects underway, as our editor in chief Gina has been documenting :-). The house has a number of original features that we are excited to restore and preserve. Perhaps chief among them is the newly unveiled hardwood flooring in our parlor and, if our luck holds, in the master bedroom. The wood appears to be either pine or douglas fir. Here is what we are working with:

While at first blush it may be a little more "blech!" than "yay!", we are quite happy to find the hardwood in such great shape. The wood would have been hand nailed down in 1885, right around the time President Chester Arthur dedicated the Washington Monument; during a period where Indian raids were still an issue in the Northwest Territories. Since that time there have been a lot of plagues unleashed on the hardwood floors of America. Who among us can forget the linoleum fad of the 1950s? What house wasn't touched by the vinyl sheet flooring of the mid-1970s? It has been a dangerous world for floors these past 127 years and we are most pleased at least one of our's made it through (relatively) unscathed. 

While we are overjoyed to not be using a heat gun to loosen adhesive and scrape up asbestos-laden tile in our parlor, we are faced with a dilemma. The floor is certainly not perfect, and it definitely needs some sprucing up (pardon the pun). The last thing we want to do is sand away too much of our wear layer or our face nailed nail heads, and wind up with a floor in need of replacing. The restoration process here will be an exercise in restraint and extremely careful sanding. 

Hopefully, if I get the thumbs up from Gina, we can repair the scuffs and scrapes and avoid having to sand too much!

Turning Our House Back Into a Home

Our home was previously used as an office, so there were some modifications made that we've started to undo. If you remember from the first floor tour video, there was a wall put in to separate the "kitchenette" from the dining room:

You can see from the first whack of Andrew's sledge hammer that taking this wall down is going to do wonders to open up the space in our kitchen:

I can't wait to show you how great the kitchen looks now!

Rub a dub dub a "brand new" tub

Remember that pink bathtub?

Remember that Rust-Oleum bathtub refinishing kit? 

Andrew got to work on it earlier this week and we now have a sparkly "new" tub!

We used the biscuit color and I think it really works well with our tile choices. Can't wait for that floor to go in!

Andrew reports the tub refinishing process was "cookie cookie monkey dance," but I guess that's the fumes talking. From what I saw, it was relatively easy (the "prep" was the most involved part) but very stinky. But that's easy for me to say, since I was at work the whole time and came home to Andrew, loopy and eager to show me the finished product. 

Video Tour of House

Andrew and I jumped right into working on the house, so I don't have many "before" pictures, but I made this quick video a couple of days before we moved in. It is just of the first floor and the house is full of the seller's stuff (they used it as an office), but I think it gives a good idea of our starting point.

Why was the house tour interrupted? Because the 4 1/2 foot snake I saw in the backyard was climbing one of our trees and Andrew thought I'd find this cool.

Sssssssso cool.