Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Well, bugger.

This past weekend I went home to the farm for a few days - I had some errands to run, and it was my sister's birthday. Who am I to miss out on cake?
I'm also suffering from project paralysis. Not knowing where to start, and not wanting to spend the money doing it until work settles down.
While I was home talking to my mom, she asked about the state of the floors. Seemed like a good thing to mull over.
At this point, the first floor is comprised of tile (bathroom), linoleum (kitchen), carpet over sub-floor (porch and mudroom), wall-to-wall carpet over narrow board hardwood (living room), and area rugs over narrow board hardwood (dining room, office and hallway.)
The narrow board hardwood dates to the Victorian Renovation period. It's also found upstairs in 3 out of the 4 bedrooms and in the hallway. The only room with the original pine floor exposed is the front bedroom, where it's been refinished sometime in the near past. The pine board is evident in the eve closets off the front of the house, where they've been painted green. The other front "bedroom" (really about the size of a generous walk-in closet) has narrow board over the pine, I believe. There's a slight height difference between the hall and the room that makes me think this.
At this point, I've seen 95% of the floors that can be easily uncovered (I'm not ripping up the living room yet, so that can remain a mystery.) All the floors I've seen (95%!) are in good, used condition, and I told my mom as such. Eventually I'd like to get them refinished, but that's a ways down the line.

I had yesterday off. I had all sorts of plans, but couldn't get a good start anywhere. Finally I settled on washing the dining room, since it's the last room on the first floor that hasn't seen a bucket of TSP substitute. While I was at it, I decided to pull the heat register out of the floor and give it a good scrub.
Rather than wall to wall in the dining room, they made
a patchwork of area rugs, and cut out a hole for the heat.
I've done this to many of the other registers, sticking my vacuum down into the sharp holes while deflecting the very curious cat at the same time. It's a... production.
First things first! Pull up the rug!
What is this nefariousness?
More tape. I'm not at all surprised. Ms Mary taped down anything that moved. I appreciate her dedication to modern adhesives.
But there was white... goo, too. Caulk?
Nope! Some flavor of plaster with a decorative wax coating!
WHO DOES THIS?
At some point in the far past, there was moisture infiltration, which led to insect damage. (There is no active insect damage. I have the receipt that this property was very thoroughly treated for all manner of pests before I bought it, and what the treatment was.) I'm not sure how you don't notice insects causing this, but maybe there was a buffet over this area or something.
One thing's for sure, I can't go refinishing a floor with gobs of plaster sticking out of it. So, let's remove that plaster and see what we've got.
Whelp.
It looks like I can replace the first three planks from the wall and fix it all. This is also the area that needs some sill work, so in hindsight I can't be too surprised.

So Mom - I didn't have any areas that needed fixing until yesterday.
But I got the dining room all washed except the ceiling!

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