Is that they are so low! . Ceilings are so high!



Some nasty damaged areas where radiators once stood, and crushed the floors. Then there was damage done when the installers removed old pipes first. I won't do a cabinet grade job, but I'll improve it quickly.



This area cleared of the old broken stuff. I bought some oak today. My neighbor and I cut it to size on his table saw.

I'll lace this back in.

Gary

A couple of the repairs. Finish not complete. To the eye, the repairs are hard to find at a glance. As soon as I bring the camera up, the color and sheen draws them out. Some factor of the camera's viewpoint. Once the sheen matches, they will be good. Far better then holes.

.

Repairing where a big hot water pipe fed a cast iron radiator.



Repairing another hole and flooring crushed and damaged by the weight of the radiator and the damage from techs who removed them.

Moving on ....

Gary

I keep on reporting to close the story loop. Things are moving faster now.

We have gotten a bunch of things corrected recently. Clearly - the hardwood floors are a BIG selling point in this house. There was some obvious damage - not a lot considering the size of the house and the age - but anybody's wife would spot a big ole hole in the floor from where old radiator pipes were removed. When the heating system was put in, I made copper discs and covered many of them. Stamped them with some designs and they were great. I never got to all the rooms and the few damaged spots. Something about making a living.

So; now the rooms are being completed and staged and holes in the hardwood floors won't fly. I found one of the multi-tool units on sale. A Porter-Cable with nice featured. It's really worked well cutting out bad sections and making end cuts, etc. It also sands great. Very fine tool.

Trailer is about half full.

Shop only has a few things in it I'm taking.

I think we are gonna pull it off. We have to hang here to complete my injection series. By then we should be done and I should feel decent for the long drive home.

That's the plan. Working on it every day. Thank you to all the readers who have stuck around. Thank the core group who have stayed and contributed to keeping the forum alive. I know who you are. It will mean something later.

God Bless
Gary

Nice work on the floor. If you've got the time and you get ambitious, a bit of filler putty and a touch of sanding and it'll blend right in like the hole was never even there. One strong point with the old-fashioned tongue-n-groove floors, they're WAY more repairable than any of the new laminates.

About half a dozen houses ago, my wife and I sanded and refinished an entire house (about 1200 square feet) of 1950's vintage oak floor. We ended up with a few "oops" wavy sections where we were still learning how to run the big drum sander, some really tired and achy backs from (interminably) running the edge sander, and over sixty gallons of sawdust. I was really surprised at how much damage you can erase with a few passes of the 40 grit drum, as the razor knives of the carpet installers and five decades underneath the old horsehair/sisal matting and the ancient wool carpet hadn't been kind. It turned out much better than expected, though it was pretty fortunate that we started out learning how to run the rented machines in a back bedroom where it showed the least.

Most importantly, we learned enough to contract it out to a professional floor company when it came time to blend in a big section of new wood with the old oak flooring on another house later on. Those guys had been refinishing old oak floors for years, and were able to "lace" in the new wood to the old so that it didn't even show. The joint was right in the most visible part of the house, halfway across the middle of the dining room floor. I thought they'd be scrounging up old vintage planks to make it match, but since they still make the same size T&G oak planks today they just used the brand-new wood instead. Even knowing where the old floor ended, it was impossible to tell which was the old wood and which was the new after it had all been blended together, sanded, and refinished.

I doubt any of the modern laminate floors being installed today will hold up as well, and I very much doubt that they'll still be making exactly the same design of planks fifty years from now. Sometimes it's not really possible to improve on the classics.

Hi Sean,

Well, I'm sure you realize that the LAST THING modern floor manufacturers want is for their floors to be "repairable". You tear it all up and put down an entire new floor.

All these things go back to skilled vs. repeat medium level task techs. You can run three crews putting down snap together floating floors or 15 year asphalt shingles for the cost of a few experienced craftsmen.



Gary

Gary

A very nice job on the floor ! The buyers that purchase the house surely will appreciate all your handy work !

I $urely hope $o !!!

Thanks Kurt!

Gary

Front Hallway. Damaged tongue and groove. This floor is a solid 3/8" tongue and groove hardwood overlay installed over the original 3" pine tongue and groove floors vthks was part of a 1940 remodel. Now - it's solid 3/8" oak, birch, maple, cherry, and walnut. Very nice stuff. Tongue and groove means the top lip of the groove is 1/8" thick. Keep floor sanders off of this. Hand held Quarter sheet sanders and the like are ok.

Well, somebody before I got here decided to mess up the front hallway. They sanded it too much. Weakened the top lips of the groove - and some places have failed since. Only place in the house where I found such damage. Guess they learned.



So, I cut out the serious damage and prepared new wood. This is solid - no tongue and groove this time. It's all epoxied in and bonded.



Other repairs made as needed. Here the individually prepared pieces are laid out in their spots (not seated down or glued yet).



It will be sanded in, stained, and sealed. You see the "fancy rug" effect the floor craftsman went for. Nice.

I used to have a very old man named Mr. Cromer sit afternoons with me in the shop. My early years here. He was always proud of his "Daddy" and his skills and he told me his Daddy put these floors in my home.

Nice job Mr. Cromer. I'm trying to pass them on in good shape.

Gary



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/21/2013 02:19PM by barnespneumatic.

Great looking repair-work Gary. Those floors are special....
Cheers
Neil

Gary, I hope you find a buyer soon that appreciates the craftsman ship present in this home. You have to search long and hard to find this level of work in any home built in the last 20 years. The light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter.

Will

Thank you Will,
The light is brighter! Thank God!!!
We just know what is gonna flag buyers or listing agents. We wanted to take care of as many as quickly as we could. You might imagine trying to contract out all these parts of the puzzle. Might as well just give them the deed. . And, somehow I doubt if they'd have their old style craftsman just standing by. They'd want to demo everything and have the new delivered on pallets.
Thanks Will,
Gary

That'll do!!

Inlays ground, sanded, with first coat of Amber Shellac!

Most of the serious floor repair is complete. Back to some plaster and paint in other rooms.

Gary

Beautiful work !!! So when you shellac that do you have to do the whole area ? Or do you blend old and new together ? I have tried to touch up guns with cold bluing and they always look worse when I'm done . Even plum color never blends! I always end up stripping the whole barrel .

Hi Kurt,

In this instance, I'd had to replace 7 or 8 boards. Had to bond and then sand them in. So: it wasn't a surgical placement - I washed over onto existing boards when sanding. So; I'm shellacking the whole area. I'll lightly sand and coat again. Shellac dries quickly. The open sanded wood absorbs and will need more.



Technically, "if" the rest of the floor were in great shape with. Good finish - and I were doing this for a client who was paying ... then the method would be different. I'd prepare the pcs. Sand and finish them individually - and then bond them in neatly. No overcoat.

For your gun touch up - the normal attempt is to blend an "area". That is very difficult. To prepare the steel means to sand or otherwise alter the sheen and openness of the pores. It rarely works well. Best to ONLY color the scratch itself. It will go away far better that way. Color, then later wax or oil and try not to stare at it. Haha.

Gary.

Gary, I honestly have no earthly idea how you can do all of this work. I'm 39 and every time I have to do anything on my knees I have a scowl on my face anticipating the pain I'm about to endure. You must be using some kind of high tech Dr. Scholl's knee pads!

I've been reading these forums since they were created, have been tempted to post but never have. I guess I figured it was about time. Thanks so very much for providing us so much content, keeping us up to date and most of all entertained!

Hello Sal !
Great to hear from you. Thanks for the kind words. You are most welcome. Thanks for posting.
I thought of you the other day. Seperately. Not as one of the faces in the holographic group of customers surrounding my bed when I wake up ... Haha. . But I looked forward to getting older orders out, and thought of you.
On the floor subject - garden knee mats, and segments of dense styrofoam. Every contortion the human body can assume. Laying prone. Crouching Tiger. One armed handstands for the corners.
It's been a hoot.
I'm driven to get out of here. That's the motivation.
Please comment when you can.
Thanks for your patience Sal,
Gary

The floors are looking great. That is going to be a huge help in how the house shows.

Thanks Jerry
We have gone with the idea that everything we've done should make a huge difference in shortening the sell time. Hope so.
We shall see soon

Gary

I think you've made good choices. People can handle an old (very) house, but they still want it to feel "new". Now, folks can enjoy the hard wood floors and character of the place without being drawn to things that obviously need repair.

Very impressive work, and i know you are ready to be finished. I did not know that place as so big....

Nicely done. I love the "try not to stare at it" part, I wish I could somehow train my wife in this technique

It's the downside of doing the work yourself on your own home, you'll usually be WAY more critical than most other people would be, since you KNOW where the flaws are.

Flaws?

Oh, the place is FLAWLESS of course, just ask your realtor!