Wednesday, October 15, 2014

do you want fries with that?

I wasn't kidding when I said I was committed to restoring the original rift sawn oak faux bois finish on the library floors....
















As proof of my dedication, I present to you my Golden Arches mustard floors.

I had hoped to have to do the finish from scratch only on the middle, unpainted section of floor, while filling in the worn spots elsewhere.  Since the bonded rosin paper made this impossible, we had to decide between painting everything, or sanding to bare wood and waterloxing.  While I love the pine, it does suggest a slightly rustic and informal feel - certainly not appropriate for a principle room downstairs.  Although a painted floor wouldn't normally strike me as the more formal option, seeing the bits of finish still in good condition, as well as identical floors in other grand houses in the area of similar age, makes me sure of my decision.

Standing, the original finished looked just like rift sawn oak, pictures don't really do the artistry justice.  Also, I have lots of rugs and VERY big furniture.  So if I completely botch this little enterprise, I'll be devastated, but I doubt the rest of the world will notice.  The first step is matching the undercoat...


Easy enough when there's a stray un-grained patch (the triangle in the middle).  Even if there weren't it's easy enough to look at the rays in quartered oak to figure out a good starting point (hint - ignore all reason and good taste and choose the most obnoxious color possible).  The color ended up being the common butterscotch paint you see in many antique homes.  This makes sense if you think of floor finishing on a price schedule, the butterscotch could be painted on, and grained later if the client changed their mind or wanted to pay the additional cost.  In the case of our house, the grained finish border was present in at least 5 of our bedrooms.  Evidence points to original wall to wall carpeting in this room (stray fibers under the baseboards), and tacked down linoleum or carpets in much of the upstairs (many, many tacks pulled up and dug from between floorboards).

To prep for the paint the floors were de-nailed, then scrubbed (mostly in an effort to rid them of rosin paper), then sanded with 40 and 80 grit.  The sanding was just done with an orbital sander taped to my shop vac.  The idea of flattening these floors is a joke, so big sanding equipment wasn't called for.  After sanding I dug out all the cracks with a dental pick, and vacuumed at every stage (vacuuming around here is a lost cause, but I have to at least try to do things right).  Under the base coat of yellow were white and gray primer coats - most likely lead based - and I'd pay a king's ransom to buy more of it on the black market, the stuff is amazingly durable, as is whatever they filled the gaps with (some old timer told me it was tinted linseed oil based glazing putty?).....

After sanding this was where we were at....  Not particularly pretty is it?  Hopefully I can begin to rectify that in a few more days...

6 comments:

  1. I love, love, LOVE the way the room is coming together. The floor is going to be stunning. Whew, what work though!

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    1. Thanks! I was in complete denial about how much work this was going to be - I've been graining for 7 hours today, and am only about an 1/8 done. Shoot me....

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  2. Having only recently discovered your blog, I have now read every post, and, wow, what an adventure you have undertaken! Bravo! Congrats!

    I have also enjoyed your writing, humor, and viewpoints. So, thanks for many well-read hours!

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    1. That means a lot to me, thanks! Too bad I didn't start writing back when we first bought the house, so many missed opportunities for posts about tedious, boring fixes...

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  3. Beautiful work! Reading your blog makes me even more impatient to finish the simple Foursquare I'm restoring/renovating now and move on to the Victorian I've been coveting.

    What did you use for sanding your floor? Did you use a commercial floor sander?

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    1. Nope, just my little random orbit sander. Since there's no subfloor, the big machines make horrible chatter marks with all the vibration they cause.

      Any plans on writing on your empty blog, or are you saving it for the victorian?

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