We are nearing the end for the barnhouse renos upstairs. Not that everything I want to do is done though, more that enthusiasm has waned to the "fukit-I'm-done-with-this" level. The main floor is liveable. That's good enough for me. I'll spend about another month on it and then be done.
This past weekend I put in the rest of the windows in the living room. Things went more smoothly with the last one. The second to last, I thought I was being clever with but ended up with some major hackery. C'est la vie. That's what trim is for. Overall I am pleased with the windows. I now need to hire someone to do aluminum trim around the outside to make them watertight. In the interim, I've left the old storm windows on the house over the new windows. Youtube videos show how easy it is to apply aluminium, but I have no desire to keep learning stuff. And leaking flashings would be disastrous.
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I also pulled up the floor in the upstairs hallway. Similar to Snacky's project at the manse, the floor was a buildup of:
Layer 1 - Carpet tiles (thankfully not glued down)
Layer 2 - 6" Plastic peel & Stick Tiles
Layer 3 - 1/4" Luan ply nailed at 3" intervals
Layer 4 - original Pine floors
My goal was to remove everything down to the pine, then lay in... something. I have some laminate flooring left from the bedrooms, as well as some vinyl left from the front entry. Either one would be fine.
Removing the carpet tiles was done some time ago by the kids. It was super easy. The peel and stick I only removed where it was already lifting. Using a skil saw, I scored up the luan into about 36" pieces and set to work with a Johnson bar and a hammer. It was tough work, and I now feel buff. I knew it would be hard work, and I learned a few things.
- When the tiles bind against each other, it makes things incredibly difficult. This was easy to fix though, as soon as they started butting against each other, I'd pop one off and they'd slide rather than binding. This allowed the luan to flex, popping the nails.
- Squatting and pulling up hard can pop a whole sheet at once once the edge lets go.
- If all else fails, brute force wins. Ripping apart sheets of luan covered in plastic tiles can be strangely satisfying - and if the top ply tears away from the sheet, taking the tiles with it, you can pull a motherlode of nails out making things easier.
Another challenge I faced was that the "reading nook" - a bunch of built-in bookshelves - as well as the hallway closets and bathroom wall were all built on top of the luan/tile layer of floor. This would have normally been a dealbreaker for tearing this stuff out, but luckily, I had bought an oscillating multitool a while back for other jobs and it proved its worth for slicing through the luan/tile. Made things go super easy. Although the battery life on this thing is incredibly bad, its been a great tool for cutting out outlets from drywall, cutting away window trim, and general detail work all over the place. I think I'm pushing it too hard since I can kill its batteries in about 10 minutes.
Once the ply was up, the floor actually looked really good beneath it. I had to repair a few busted boards around a cold air return, and there were some marks from my prybars etc. But the floor looks mostly OK. I may just paint it instead of laying a new floor.
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The third major task for the weekend was giving the stairs a facelift. I have been fearing/avoiding this job for months. My plan was to remove the existing linoleum and then carpet the stairs to hide whatever ugly was hiding below. then I got the price to lay carpet and decided I would just put a runner up them. Runners are not available to match the width of the stairs, and the linoleum wasn't laid tight in the corners, so I was going to have to take a more "enthusiastic approach." I have been unenthusiastic about this.
Step 1 was removing the linoleum. It peeled away in a single sheet from top to bottom. The backing of the linoleum was some sort of fibre - maybe hemp, maybe coconut fibre. It was a course organic material which remained glued to the steps after the lino was gone. I let out a deep sigh and envisioned myself hand scraping every step so that I could sand them down.
I did that with the bottom stair, and then sanded it to reveal really nice pine under the glue. The pine looks nice enough that I thing an ebony stain would really look great on the treads with a traditional white riser. With this new plan in mind, I went ahead and removed the metal band that was used to edge the bottom step when the linoleum went on.
Then I sanded down a second step, and found that it was dotted with roofing nails. There must have been 15 roofers stuck in the tread. Ugh.
On closer inspection, the roofers were holding down a sheet of 1/4" ply that had been overlaid onto the step. I grabbed the Johnson bar and lifted the ply. Beneath the plywood there was about 1/8" of a mixture of paint, glue, and some kind of shellacish-elephant snot that was hardened into a glazed shell.
I was using my mini-belt sander (I made a
youtube review here back when I thought I could get rich blogging) and with the coarsest grit of belts available, it did a good job of eating through the crap and raising the wood. Elation! There were still challenges though, first the belter couldn't get into the corners of the stair at all; second, the belt wore out after a single step; and third, the belter would heat up so hot that I couldn't touch it. it was literally burning my hands by the time a stair was done.
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I started a rotation of jobs. I would Sand down a stair until the sander got too hot to hold, then go and cut away a window frame until my arms were tired from holding the recip saw overhead, then go and cut away at the hall floor until the charge gave out on the oscillating tool, and then pull up hunks of luan until it felt like my arms/shoulders were going to give out.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
By the end of Sunday, I was sore and tired, but things were really coming along. I was also out of sand paper.
On Monday I use the oscillating tool with a detail sanding attachment to try and clean the elephant snot out of the corners of the stairs that the belter couldn't reach. It did a semi-adequate job of it. I wasn't pleased though, and the sanding pads wore out way too fast. I may hit them again with a rasp attachment instead. I now have half of the stairs stripped to raw wood.
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In order to have some fun, I started a fire to let burn while everything else was going on , and by the time I left for home on Monday afternoon I had burnt up a massive pile of scrap lumber from the garage. This is a huge relief. Next weekend I'll do the same with a second pile. As we've worked on the house, everything I tore out from beams to rafters, to studs to trim, to offcuts has been thrown in 2 bays in the garage. The piles have gotten big enough that I can't work around them anymore. So, when I felt like I needed a break from the work rotation, I'd go to the garage for fresh air and cut the scrap into 18" lengths to fit in the chiminea in the back yard.
That fire was damned hot. And flames were flying about 6' out the top of the firebox. Lucky for me the neighbours never said anything. I kept it pumping all day Sunday and Monday.
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On Saturday night I went to visit a family in town. I had mentioned them earlier - a pair of grandparents raising their 4 grand-kids as crown wards. Grandma works as a PSW in a nursing home that you can walk to from Barnhouse (its on the other side of the pond) in a Union position with 15 years seniority. Grandpa is up for surgery next month and stays home with the grandkids on a combined income of disability and payments from the government for fostering the grandkids. The family income puts them nicely in 40% bracket for rent to income ratio. When they came through to tour the house, Grandma showed me their gov't cheques as proof of income and offered to sign them over to me for first and last month's rent. I declined until I had a decision made. When we met, she handed me the first and last in cash money. I don't know how to deposit that to Tangerine. I haven't actually had to deposit that much cash to the account yet.
Together we went over the lease agreement and cleared up what they expected of the house. Grandpa asked if it would be OK for him to finish some jobs - he likes to tinker, and has a full tool set, which he proudly showed me. So he will be refinishing the built-ins in the kids' room, dealing with the landscaping work out back, and doing some painting and refinishing the kitchen cabinets. Perfect. He can't fuck things up any worse than I have, and if he does he has to live with it. On their reference check, the previous landlord mentioned the improvements these two had made to the houses they had rented from them (15 yrs in house 1, 2 years in house 2) and they seemed happy with the work.
As I left the grand kids came running in from the backyard. I was walking to the car and heard cheering and yelling "We got it! We got it!!" The kids sounded thrilled. I warmed my cockly heart.
The family will have access to store stuff starting on June 1, with a move-in date of June 15th. On June 2 we will do a walk-thru to figure out what I need to complete by the 15th. Three weekends to wrap everything up. The end is in sight.
Once the family is in, I'll take the summer off. In the fall I'll be back to deal with the basement. I'll need something to do over the winter!
