The new oak floor. Ooo - shiny.
A lot has happened since my hard drive fried, taking with it my administrative password. Some catching up is in order. Work on the apartment has continued all during this time, and a very nice (and imaginative, given the state of the place) couple from up the hill, S. and B., have put a deposit down on the place. Oh, and I learned how to create a new password directly in the site's database. Excellent moment of geek.
When we left our story, the kitchen was just ready to accept its granite countertop. It now has that (pic below). In addition, David has installed under-cabinet lighting and made a light-box over the sink. We are well pleased with the result. Downstairs, the laborious job of stripping the old wood, then cleaning off the … well I described this last time … anyway, it's done.
Outside, although the weather has been cold and or rainy, which has put the "pain" in "painting". Nevertheless, a primer and a base coat are now on, waiting for warmer weather to finish the job. We must make sure the new base coat has successfully adhered at colder than optimal temperatures before we put more coats on. The gate door had been finished indoors, and has been temporarily hung pending some balancing.
The new kitchen floor. The biggest news is also the newest news: the new kitchen floor is in! (See pic above.) In the interim, we made a grim discovery. The beautiful old fir floor, down since 1915, will not take another sanding.
My HD crash took my orinal photos of the new countertops with it,
but here's the sink section, showing the cool under-cabinet lighting
and the gleaming new sink.
Why is this important? Well, in the kitchen, we had considered getting more old fir and completing the floor that way (pricey!), or putting down what would amount to a temporary floor till the fir could be afforded. Well, now it seems that the entire floor in the apartment must be replaced next time round—no refinishing. Straight-grain, clear, old-growth fir, which used to be abundant and affordable, is now worth your life, just about. Putting in a hardwood floor would be cheaper. Yes, believe it or not.
This pretty sad, but it's not tragic. In fact, when 1929 was built, it was a modest Craftsman with fir floors throughout. Expensive homes of the same period featured 2.5" oak flooring, often with parquet edges. My sister's home, for example, has oak on the "public" floor, and fir in the bedrooms and closets upstairs. So, we decided that the kitchen would begin a "period upgrade" to white oak flooring. That's what's now finished in the kitchen, thin-cut white oak. Eventually, the whole Lower apartment will have white oak floors, except in the closets, where the fir will be retained.
In the bathroom, which will be the last to be finished, a hole in the tile on the vanity where an old telephone connection came in had the old tile off, and replacement tiles have been ordered.
Modifying the cabinet for the new cooker.
The day's work included toning the downstairs trim to match the new gently white-washed (off-white, really) wood paneling. The wash uses the same paint as the non-paneled walls. In the kitchen, David reworked a cabinet to accept the drawer and door that I had cut down and reassembled. Why? Because the fancy new slide-in gas cooker sticks out 3" from the edge of the countertop, and would have jammed the old drawer and door. In the picture of the new floor above, you can see the "before" state of the cabinet. Making way for progress. In the photo at right, you can see the opening being changed. The drawer and the door will be mounted tomorrow, and the next day we will sand, stain and finish the cabinet. The width of the trim from the corner to the cabinet opening seems bizarrely wide, but will make sense visually when the cooker is installed.
