New House Continued

So, ever since the day we picked up the keys we’ve spent pretty much every night, sometimes as late as eleven, working on the place. The carpet was shocking and the paint scheme garish so we knew immediately we’d have to redo the floors and repaint.

Within the two hours I had the carpet up and out. I found this an exceptionally encouraging pace. Two hours later I had the old yellow linoleum up and out. Again, I was envisioning the whole place done, floors polished and gleaming walls painted and calling out for art in a matter of days. Beneath the lino was chipboard tacked to the old hardwood boards, our first sign of trouble. It took three of us another two full evenings to literally shovel this ornery stuff up leaving thousands of rusty nails. These cost us another three nights, spent on hands and knees pulling each and every one out by hand, hammer and pry-bar. We’re still snagging socks on the odd tack in the middle of the night walk to the toilet.

So here we are five weeks later, finally ready to get the floors polished. It is going to take the week and we’ll have to move in with the in-laws for a couple of days once the sanding is finished and the noxious varnish is applied. At the moment, the gas has been turned off so that the stove could be removed to get at the floor beneath. No gas means no heat, no cooking and NO HOT WATER! So this morning I brewed coffee on the camp stove and boiled water for the gravity-driven camp shower. Basically it’s like camping without the bugs and sleeping bags.

Roughing it aside, we are extremely excited by the early stages of sanding. As we pulled up, cleaned, cut and replaced nearly every floor in the house we have gained an intimate knowledge of each and every floor board and it is exciting to watch as the old grime, paint, putty and varnish is stripped away revealing the nature and texture of the Baltic pine’s grain beneath.