Our Floor has Issues

Like this one.

It seems to be nearly impossible for us to make any headway with our living room floor because of all the little things that need to be done before we can bring our friend, the orbital sander, into the picture.  First, there is the floor furnace.  We could leave it. We could try to ignore this guy and go on with our lives, but it doesn’t seem like that is going to work out.  We tried to remove him.

And instead he embedded himself further into the floor.  It seems like the more we pull, the more the thing sunk- maybe we could just bury it in that hole?

Jimmee was feeling the frustration and brought out the hammer or whatever tool that is.

That’s not our only problem.  We also found this lovely thing under the carpet.  Nice surprise, eh?

Here’s a close-up.

Our third dilemma is the tile in the entry way that we’re not very fond of.  We weren’t sure if there was wood under it or something else, but we decided we wouldn’t know unless we removed the tile.

So we started by tearing it up…  here is the process in photos.

Once we got the tile up, SURPRISE! another layer of flooring to get through, along with a layer of drywall that the tile was attached to.

This one had tar adhesive, which we had to do our best to scrape up.  After lots of scraping (and arm toning), we decided to switch to mineral spirits, which took the last bits of tar right off.

So that pretty much solved dilemma number 3.  Now number 1 and 2 were left to be dealt with, and since we weren’t too confident of our wood-working skills, we decided to pick up the phone and call a professional.

We did the demo before he came, and then he did a great job filling in the wood where needed.

Here is the final finished floor!  Problems solved!

Number 1:

Number 2:

Number 3:

Next up, floor refinishing!  Check back later to see the shiny, new floor…

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Weekend Projects

We have been busy this weekend trying to tie up lots of loose ends around the house!  It seems like there are so many different things going on at once, and I’m hoping we can get some of them done and move on.  I think the number one priority was to eliminate the dirt pile, but that seems to be impossible.  We still have quite a bit left, and I may have to resort to a “FREE dirt” sign in the yard.  There are ominous rain clouds in the sky right now so the we may not have much of a pile after tonight.

Here it is staring at us through the bedroom window.

We made some progress on the front bed, and I’m hoping to get some advice about what to plant from our neighbor who is a landscape architect.   His yard looks great, and he has a really nice mix of different plants rather than just the usual evergreens.

Here are some photos of the progression.

Here is the final bed- oh, and did you notice the last remaining shutters that were clinging to the house hoping to survive a couple more months are now gone!  and so are the spider colonies that were behind them.  Someone stopped me one day and asked me (very seriously) if we thought it would be the new trend to have just one shutter on each window.   I didn’t want to give anyone the wrong idea so they are now gone.

It’s hard to see it in the pictures, but we finally have one lone peony open!!  I’m hoping to have a bouquet in the kitchen later this week. :)

The other thing we’re working on is getting the floors prepped for the refinishing.  We’re hoping to take out the floor furnace in the living room before refinishing the rest of the wood next week.

Here is the ugly furnace I hope to not see for much longer.

We are going to have to pull out the actual furnace part that’s underneath the grate so Jimmee had to crawl under the house and disconnect the gas and the other pipes.  Here he is emerging from the crawl space.

I was really happy, in fact elated, that I was not designated to go under the house and search for these things with the roaches and spiders.  I’ve seen my share of those things lately, and frankly I’ve had enough of them for a long time.  Jimmee did a good job, and he made it out safe and sound  and had very little anxiety about the whole thing.  Now hopefully we can get the wood replaced and get on with the refinishing!!

That pretty much sums up the weekend for us…  Jimmee is off to Arkansas now, and I’m going to attempt to study for my last final.

To all the mothers, especially my mom and Jody, I want to wish you a HAPPY mother’s day!!!   I hope everyone had a nice and relaxing day!