Renewing Floors- 2020 Edition

Guess what we did this weekend?!? 

Yes, we shellacked the floors again! The last time was back in.... 2014! I just checked and if you are interested HERE is the link to the post about it. Goodness! All things considering the floors have held up great for six years. 

Other floors posts can be found here and here.

As you can see, there was worn patches and scratches. And I probably should have done this last year, but I had just finished up the Brick House floors and wasn't really ready to tackle more floors. That turned out to be okay as moving the radiators around put a few more scrapes and scratches in the floors. Not to mention the patching of the cold air returns.

There is something refreshing about moving all the furniture out and cleaning the floors and baseboards really well. (Actually, the dining room table, bookshelf and the sofa stayed. Everything else we managed to cram on the front porch and in the bedrooms!)

Part of this project was also redoing the little hallway floor. I never liked how it turned out, but since it was a small portion of the floor we just lived with it. Above  is the "after" with finish on it. It was quite the process to get there!

This is what I started with. I hadn't realized how scratch up it was. And obviously I needed to blend the patch with the rest of the floor.

The first step was to remove the current finish which was shellac I had put on it 2013. I tried not to use a sander as the dust gets everywhere. Instead I tried scraping it by hand with a vintage Stanley 82 scraper. It worked fairly well, but was very slow on taking off the finish. So I eventually got out a small belt sander.

Because this is maple which I tried to stain, the belt sander wasn't evening it out very well and I ended up doing a final sanding by hand with 50 grit sand paper, then hand scraping it thoroughly to smooth it. This method worked very well and I felt like it was a reasonably good place to be. I wasn't ready to spend another week sanding to try and get down below all the stain.

 The first coat was a light amber button shellac similar to what I used at the Brick House (a detailed post here). I used the same button type shellac from www.Shellac.net , just in a different shade. Yes, shellac comes in different shades! It just depends on how dark you want your orange. Lol! There isn't too much difference between the shades, but it is nice to have options.

And this is with the next coat of shellac which I put Brown Mahogany dye in. (Also from Shellac.net). I love how the dye worked! It is still a bit blotchy from the previous stain job and old sanding marks. I am not sure if it that much different from how it started, but at lest the cold air patch is blended a bit more! And the tone matches better.

  At the same time as putting the first coat on the hallway, we put a coat on the dining room. You can see the line in the picture above of "coated" and "uncoated". The button shellac is so different from the pre-mixed shellac you buy in the store. I know it is hard to tell in this picture, but the buttons are a lot less shiny, it also dries faster and harder. And for some reason not as glossy smooth. Still trying to figure that one out....

I love the afternoon sun coming in the piano window! Just waiting for everything to dry!

 We have been enjoying a clean and uncluttered look!

Now we are working on finding a new rug we like and wall art. This long wall has kinda been a stumper!

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Patching Floors

Hello Friends! We are all well. I haven't been motivated this winter to blog. And everything going on in the world didn't help motivate me either. But the sun is shining, we are getting back to normal and things are looking up! I hope all of you are well.

Today, I am here to talk about patching floors. And in this case, patching old cold air returns. True to 1920's science at the time, the cold air returns were huge! 

First, I will briefly mention the cold air return in the picture above. My brother did this one so I can't take credit. But I did watch carefully and that gave me courage to tackle the other two! This cold air return was also a lot smaller as it was a later edition. I suspect it must of been cut in the late 40's/50's when the heating system was updated.

Not so large at all!

Before the sub-floor was patched, but after the floor boards are cut back.

 This is the dining room cold air return. Inconveniently placed just behind the dining room table. (And yes, we had a couple of incidents of chairs legs getting stuck in the grate and people suddenly falling off their chairs.) We were glad to see this one go!

Mandy and I added a couple of new blocks on the edges to make sure the subfloor would be stable. In the photo above you can also see that part of this area has a decided tip. It is a small window bump out. And given that it is a few years shy of 100 years old, a bit saggy. Which made it a little tricky getting the new plywood sub floor mostly level!

 We finally got approximately level. Then the next step was cutting back the old floor boards to "feather" in new. As you can see, the "new" boards match almost perfectly! I raided my older brother's stash of old flooring and after a good clean, the boards blend right in! That is one advantage of using the same shellac finish as old flooring! 

And after a bit of hammering, screwing and cutting, the new boards are in! On this patch we were lucky as the tongues were facing toward the wall. Which means we started laying the boards from the front edge of the hole to the back. And the last board is held in place with a couple of face nails or nails through the top of the board. 

 Naturally, the cold air return across the room in the hallway was quite as easy.....

For one thing, the tongues go the other way, meaning we had to start at the wall and work out from there. But first I had a little trouble locating a couple of old maple floor boards. Our local salvage place was out, the older brother didn't have any the right width... finally I discovered my brother-in-law had a stash! Yey for family members that are also into old houses!!

 One tool I would highly recommend for a project like this is oscillating multi tool saw. Very neat tool! It is a little hard to cut super straight when cutting straight down with a vibrating tool, but a lot neater than a hammer and chisel.

Once the old boards were cut back, new boards cut to length we were ready to screw in the boards. That is when we discovered we should be working from the wall out! Opps! Just a few screws to unscrew and we were headed in the right direction. All went good until we got to the last board next to the old floor. The tongue on the old flooring was also ready cut off , so that was good. But the new board was warped and refused to go in it's place. (Even when boards aren't warped it is tricky getting the last board in place!) So we unscrewed the next to last board, wedged the warped board in place and screwed it down and then put the next to last board in. Except it was a close call..... We hammered and wedged and pushed for all we were worth and it would not go! We scraped and chiseled edges and it still would not go. Mandy and I just kept banging away and just about the time we were going to give up, it popped into place! 

I told Mandy to sit on it while I ran to get the trim nails! We did not want it to even think about coming out!

This one was a bit odd to feather in. At the one end is my bedroom door, so couldn't go that way. The other end is the bathroom door way. And since I am not 100% sure how well I am going to get the old and new to blend I didn't want to feather into the doorway. 

So I ended up only feathering an inch or inch and half. It still turned out really well! So I am happy!

The next project is to try and figure out how to blend the old and new. The old floor is maple. It was covered with 1940's linoleum when I bought the house. After pulling up the linoleum, we used a steam mop to heat the black tar/glue stuff to get it off. The heat and steam opened the pores in the wood and allowed it to take up stain. (Normally maple is notoriously hard to stain! But I didn't know that!) I am not sure I can replicate that whole scenario on the new boards.

But I will keep you posted!

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An Old Fashioned Wood Floor Tutorial

With all the crazy weather last week nothing got done at the Brick House. Other than running by a couple of times to check on pipes, I stayed home and kept warm! So no progress to report. But I do have my tutorial on shellacking floors. I am sure there is multiple different ways to do each step, but this is the way I do it. I purchased my shellac from Shellac.net. Their website is also chock full of useful information!

This was the first time I used Shellac Buttons and I must say it was easy to work with! I love the way the finish turned out and how hard it already is. Very different from the pre-mixed shellac. Read THIS to learn why button shellac is harder and better for floors.

I bought a five pound bag of buttons, which is a lot of shellac! To make it easier to mix I pre-weighed the buttons into 1/2 pound bags.

 Make the Shellac.
Measure your denatured alcohol. I bought a bunch of paint mixing buckets and lids. It made it so easy to measure the right amount of alcohol! Since I was mixing a 2-pound cut; I needed 1 quart per 1/2 pound of shellac. (A pound cut refers to how thick one makes the shellac. A 2 pound cut is a standard starting point. It is really personal preference and project preference. Shellac.net has a handy chart HERE.)

Crush the shellac buttons. My favorite tool of choice was a large adjustable wrench! A hammer works good too. I tried to at lest break the buttons into quarters. (It makes the shellac melt a little quicker to have the buttons crushed.)

Add shellac and mix well. This is where an extra paint stirrer comes in handy! Place your container out of the direct sunlight in a warmish place. Since it was cold out, I put my containers on the warm radiators.

Wait and Stir. If you happen to be nearby to your shellac containers you can stir every hour or two. If you happen to only be nearby once or twice a day, that works too! It takes a little longer to stir it up and a little longer for all the shellac to melt.

24 hours after. The one on the right has not been stirred, the one on the left has.

3 days after. Opps! Missed a day stirring. The shellac was a large gooey mass on the bottom. With a bit of stirring most of it broke up. You can see it is looking thicker!

While you are waiting for your shellac to melt, I hope you are prepping your floors! I scrubbed mine down with denatured alcohol and a green scrubby sponge. Depending on the condition of your floors, you just might want to wipe them down with denatured alcohol and a rag.

5 days after. Nice and thick and no more clumps on the bottom. Now we are ready to strain!

Tip: If you have a couple of buckets of shellac going at the same time you might want to label if the are Dirty=unstrained or Clean=strained.

 I wasn't sure if I needed to strain at first, but when I ordered the buttons I also received a couple of paint strainers. Once you strain a batch you will see why it is essential! I was sent fine paint strainers with 190 microns, when I ordered more on Amazon that is what I looked for.

 Strain shellac. Pour shellac into a paint strainer over a "clean" bucket.

 When the shellac got clogged up I used a paint stirrer to scrap the crud off the filter area. Sometimes I used two filters per bucket and sometimes for top coats I strained it twice.

Look at all the debris! You don't want that in your floors!

Shellac those floors! Now you are finally ready to shellac! It dries very quickly so work in small areas at a time. I would usually start in the back corner of a room and work to the opposite end in a 6-8 floor board wide swath. Then I would crawl back to the beginning and do another swath. The living and dining room I treated like two rooms and stopped in the middle. If you look very very close there is a line in the shellac (With the second coat I stopped about 6 longer so the line wouldn't be in the same place for both coats.), but I knew this when I started and it doesn't bother me.
I used just about every type of brush on these floors and really couldn't tell much difference in the finish. The one type I didn't try was a lamb's wool applicator. I have used this in the past and did not get the knack. Too many drips and lines. Foam sponge brushes work fine, but it goes on thin. A chip brush works good and I used it for the majority of the floors. I felt like I could get it on quite thick for the first coat, which I liked. Then I invested in an expensive natural hair brush which I used for the top coat downstairs. It put the shellac on a little tiny bit thinner than the chip brush which was fine for a top coat.

 For all the floors in the house I put two 2-pound coats down. If I had more time and more shellac I might have put three coats down and thinned the top one more. There are visible brush strokes in some areas if you look close. But I think it just adds to the beauty! And a super smooth finish was not my main goal, I just wanted to bring these old floors back to life and make them the look the best they could!

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Brick House Update: Floors (still!)

My how time flies! These first few weeks of the new year have been packed full. These pictures were taken almost two weeks ago now! We had a couple of moments of sun and the first coat of shellac was dry on the living/dining room floors! A very exciting moment!

It doesn't sound like a lot at first, but when 1200 sq. ft. of wood floors need to be scrubbed, scrapped, shellacked, sanded lightly and shellacked again it ends up being a lot of work! It felt like a really long process and I am so excited that the second coat went on a few days ago!

They are certainly not perfect. There are still scratches, dents, discolored spots and stains, but they are a far cry from where they started! I am really happy with how they turned out.

The front entry is the last floor left. It is quite worn (and dirty!) Since this picture I have finished scrubbing it with denatured alcohol and have also given it a scrub with soap and water. It is looking better. We will see how well it turns out. I am hoping to get at lest one coat on before the end of the week.

 The sun was coming in so pretty I couldn't resist a few more pictures! This is the upstairs hallway. You can see there is a bit of water staining and discoloration here too. But for being 100 years old they are looking good!

The middle bedroom floors.

And we have blinds! It has made such a difference to have window coverings! Last Saturday I also got curtains up in the living room and dining room. Makes it so much more homey!

In other news, the laundry room sink is almost plumbed in, we have replaced all the outlets to white ones, planed the top of sticky closet doors and prepped the stairs for paint!

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