A Week in Instagram

Boston Public Garden

Last Saturday, two million people and I headed in to the city

at the same time.  They for the Red Sox victory parade and me

for a haircut appointment I had made six weeks earlier...just one

block from the parade route.  There was a parking ban and requests

that people come early, leave late and enjoy the city.

I headed in on subway two hours early and found I had much of 

the city to myself on a quiet, warm and beautiful morning.

  

It's hard to catch a good photo of the post office on Charles Street

without a car or van parked immediately in front but I did it.

The young woman walking her dog was taking advantage of 

the balmy weather we were gifted with.

The colors were perfect on The Public Garden...

...George Washington was dressed up for the occasion.

...and the parade began as I headed back home.

Now that it's dark when I leave work, I've been enjoying

the fall foliage by street light.

The electrical, plumbing and HVAC inspections were

completed and the icynene insulation went in.

If you're not a This Old House watcher, icynene is foam that's

sprayed into each wall cavity, it quickly expands to fill each bay and

is then shaved off so it's even with the studs.

The upstairs porch deck is in and the columns are installed.

Just the railings upstairs left to go

I was having a hard time even remembering what

they used to look like...

...and I'm thankful I've been taking photographs from the very

beginning to see the progress.

I was out and about yesterday and found something I've

never seen before.  On the back of large shopping plaza,

the cement block wall has been painted to look like a quaint

row of houses.  Except for the blue door and the light above it,

all of this is paint on cement blocks.  It's very well done.

Wilson Farms in Lexington was still filled with fall color,

with cider donuts, mounds of freshly picked apples

and a huge bin of beautiful but unwanted pumpkins.

That's my week in pictures.

Follow me on Instagram if you'd like.  It's fun.

Testing Floor Finishes

I don't know if it happened staining the deck or slinging the new windows

around but somehow I end up with a dislocated sacroiliac joint--medical

term for "pain in the ass"--last weekend.  My chiropractor helped a little bit

but it took a few days of icing before it finally popped back in when I sat

up in bed on Friday.  Not a fun thing.

Aside from hobbling back and forth to work and sitting on the couch 

watching the World Series with ice packs, I wasn't able to get a lot done

except contemplate kitchen cabinets and do a few more floor samples.

Ever since I painted my bedroom floors Benjamin Moore Gray Owl,

I've wanted to paint more floors in the house.  Painted floors seem to

be very transitional and work well in both traditional and modern settings.

And a light painted floor makes it always feel like summer.

But, if you've ever had a painted floor, you'll know it's not very forgiving

in terms of showing dust, pet hair and miscellaneous pookies.

Sherry Hart's bedroom floors, photo Sherry Hart

Inspired by Loi Thai's post on Swedish floors and Sherry Hart's

bedroom floors, I set out to find some techniques for pickling,

bleaching, staining and liming that I might use to create a light-colored

floor that still has some texture and variation to hide crumbs.

photo:  Eleish Van Breems

I found a youtube video video featuring Rhonda Eleish and Edie Van Breems

of Eleish Van Breems design firm--recently seen on the "This Old House"

Cambridge modern Swedish project--that demonstrates pickling and liming floors

using Minwax and Briwax liming wax.  In my later research, neither Minwax

nor Briwax recommend using these products on floors and one of the designers

concedes the [tortuous] process must be repeated every year or two.  No thanks! 

In the Briwax on-line help forum I found a reference to using white grain filler

to get the limed look on floors.  But I can't seem to find it for sale anywhere.

I did a few google searches for white wood filler and found two for sale.
Timbermate and Goodfilla.  The consistency of Timbermate was putty-like
and it smelled a little like magic markers; Goodfilla was a little more paste-like
and a lot easier to work with.  Here are a few of my test pieces:

Please note that all of these samples are on white oak.

Here's a sample of Benjamin Moore's oil-based pickling stain on top versus

white wood filler on the bottom.  I used a putty knife to apply the white wood filler

and when it was dry, I lightly sanded the surface which leaves the wood filler

in the grain.  I immediately loved the effect of the white grain.  It almost looks

like wood that was painted and has worn back down to the natural wood.

But when I added a Varathane top coat, a lot of the effect seemed to dissolve away.

I wasn't sure if it was the water-based finish that dissolved the water-based wood filler so

tried using Benjamin Moore's oil-based pickling stain (no longer available) on the bottom

half to see if it preserved the wood filler in the grain.  It didn't work very well.

I tried bleaching the natural color of the oak using Savogran wood bleach.

It took a few coats of bleach to lighten the wood and it really raised the grain

of the wood.   I'm not convinced I want to go this route.

I tried using the stain I used on the back porch.  It also dissolved the grain filler

and after the debacle on the back porch, I'm not sure I want to give this a try in the house.

I thought I would try a few Minwax stains right out of the can.

This is Classic Gray.  Don't like it at all.  It seems very fake.

Minwax Limed Oak sitting on some of samples with

white grain filler.  Another awful stain.  It was thick and white

but none of the white penetrated into the wood.  There's nothing about

this that looks limed and I wonder if it was bad.

Minwax Weathered Oak.  It actually darkens the grain.   A friend of mine

said it reminded him of church.  Not a bad color  but it's too similar

to my other floors that are stained English Chestnut.  I don't think

it would be a good juxtaposition.

On the lower sample, I tried the Weathered Oak stain on white wood filler.

On the lower right, I tried tung oil on the white grain filler.  Again, it goes away.

Then I thought I would try Sherry Hart's method of applying a solution

of 50% paint (BM Aura, Icicle) and 50% water.  It looks a little

blue in the photo because it was cloudy outside but it looks good in person.

Quite white but with some wood grain and texture showing through.

On the upper piece, I wiped off the paint with a wet rag.

You can compare these with the white wood filler samples in the background.

Finally, I tried lightly sanding the painted sample from the

above photo which left the paint in the grain and 

then I adding a top coat of tung oil.  This most closely

imitates the sample of white grain filler with no top coat. 

I think I'll try doing a larger sample to see how it looks.

Ductwork, Deck and Time Capsule

I didn't get my floor samples done because I had other things that

needed to get done first.  Did you ever spend a weekend

working on a project that ends up just feeling like a setback?

Before I get to that, let me show you this week's progress.

The heating ducts are in to the upstairs.  You'll also notice the new window.

This was the window that was in the old bathroom.

The other new window that will be over the sink.  It's the same exact size

as the old window, it just slid up a few inches so it clears the countertop.

The new windows from outside.  These are same windows I used

on the front of the house.  Marvin, clad with ebony aluminum.

The back porch has it's new columns in place on the first floor.  I'm really

happy with how they look and now that I see them in place, I don't want to

add any railings on the first level.  I'm not required to have any railings if

the deck is less than 29 inches high.

The columns are Turncraft Polyclassic columns, eight-inches square.

They're made out of a fiberglas reinforced resin that's supposed to be stronger

than steel and concrete.  You just cut them to length, secure them in place and

then the capital will slide up and get tacked in place.

I spent the weekend working on the deck.  I bleached the wood with wood bleach

to get rid of the mildew stains, wiped it down with a baking soda solution to

neutralize the bleach and gave it two coats of Behr semi-transparent stain.

It doesn't look too bad in the photos but it's really blotchy.  It seemed like

the water-based finish was drying as quickly as I was putting it on so I couldn't

keep a wet edge.  The orangey-pink color of wood also makes it look lavender.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it.  Probably go more opaque.

This is the view of the dining room window.

Back inside for a minute.  The floor joists that span the two foundations

are getting back with pieces of plywood so that the spaces can be filled

with foam insulation.

This was my last chance to get my time capsule buried.

I used an old tool box that was in the basement and filled it with goodies:

A first generation iPod mini that's never been taken out of the box, an

old iPhone, an empty bottle of cold brew coffee (since it seems to be all

the rage right now), blueprints of the house showing all of the work I did,

before-and-after photos of the house, printouts of several posts from the blog

(including all of your comments!), photos of me and cats, a newspaper, Google

maps of the neighborhood, historical maps of the neighborhood and an article

on global warming that included pro and con arguments about human causality.  

All of the paper materials went into tyvek envelopes just to protect them from moisture.

I closed up the tool box, put in a trash bag and dropped it down the last opening between

the two foundations.  It's weird to think I'll never see this again in my lifetime. 

The plumbing, electrical and HVAC inspections should take place this week,

the insulation can go in and then the fun part can begin!

Kitchen and Porch Progress 10.19.13

You all surprised me with your love for black and brass.  I do like it too

but as some of you pointed out, it might be a little heavy.  But I love both

the white and black so no decisions have been made.  I'm still looking actually.

Some good progress has been made; in fact, I think the plumbing is done.

All the new outlets and switches have been roughed in.

The ceiling is furred out and ceiling fixtures have been wired.

I think there's just the ductwork for heating to go and we can insulate

and get the walls closed up so the fun can begin.

But it's a busy, busy weekend of getting as much outside painting

done as I can.  It's supposed to turn much colder next week so I'm not sure

how much more time I'll have before it gets too cold to paint.

I decided to tackle the hardest thing first.  Thirty panes on the French doors.

When I was painting the inside of my new windows are few years ago,

you may recall I discovered that Scotch makes blue tape corners for windows

and hinges.  I've never seen them in a store but I found them online.  These

rolls of 60 are $7 on Amazon and I'd need two rolls of them just for the doors.

Kind of expensive just to tape the corners.

So I went back to my little trick for taping the corners and refined it even more.

I was initially cutting very sharp, almost 45 degree angles in the tape but

I've discovered that cutting a much more oblique angle is actually much easier.

Overlapping the two pieces with the point in the corner makes a perfect fit.

Then just fill in the sides.

I got all the goobers scraped off last weekend and one side primed in dark gray.

I got the other side taped up and primed today and a final coat of

black on the first side so I'll be able to finish them up tomorrow.

Image from Houzz.com

I was thinking of going with dark colors on the back porch deck and

ceiling and this was inspiration for that idea.  I was concerned it

might read Craftsman or Bungalow and some of you pointed out

that the dark colors would really absorb heat from the sun.

Image:  Christie's Real Estate

So it seems like a better idea to keep things light not only to keep it cooler

but I'd like the porch to be an extension of the kitchen and these are more

like the colors I'll have in the house.

I chose a semi-transparent stain by Behr called Cape Cod Gray

and it seems to cover the orange tones of the fir decking while

still allowing some the grain to show.  I can always go more opaque

later but thought this would be a good place to start.

The outer edges of the decking that have gotten wet in the rain seem to

have mildewed so I was little concerned this might show through the stain.

So I tried a little wood bleach on the edge of the deck that will be

trimmed off and it very quickly removed all the mildew stains so Ill

give the whole deck a quick coat of wood bleach, and then wipe it down

with a solution of baking soda to neutralize it before I do the staining.

I'm not happy to extra steps but it's nice to know there's a way to fix the problem.

In the meantime, I'm gluing up some white oak samples so I can experiment with

stains and finishes for the kitchen floor.  I'll show you those next time.