Finished (sort of)

The guiding design principle all the way has been to create a building that appears to have its roots firmly in the 1900s.  Given that, there was no way a high gloss, super smooth plastic looking floor was going to be for us.  Besides, we've laid real floor boards not laminate or vinyl. 

 

When it comes to timber floors there seems to be two broad approaches to finishing.  Either you go for a finish that sits on the timber, a polyurethane for example, or something that soaks into the timber, like a tung oil.  Both approaches have their ups and downs.   We went with a tung oil as we liked that it results in a satin finish which is easily repaired and doesn't stick the boards together (called edge bonding).  There are also tung oil brands around that have far less nasty chemicals in them than most of the polyurethanes.

So, our couple of days finishing went like this:

1. Sand with 60 grit paper.
2. Followed by 80 grit.
3. Hand rub on a coat of tung oil.
4. Hand rub the tung oil off after 15 minutes.
5. Leave for a day, then repeat steps 3 and 4.
6. Do all this with lots of ventilation and don't walk on it for another day.

If it still looks good in 12 months I'll let you know the brand of oil we used.  In the meantime - we're really happy with it.

PS-the light project turned out pretty well too.

Two perspectives

Any owner builder will tell you that long weekends are sacrosanct - their sole purpose is to move DIYer's building schedules along by more than a normal two day weekend permits.

Our plan for this June long weekend had been developed weeks ago:

• complete sanding the floor,
• get at least one coat of oil on the boards, 
• caulk the downstair's wall plates, and
• replace some of the dead walnut saplings in the tree plot.

Three days instead of two meant the opportunity to come back 150% more worn out than usual and we had both been looking forward to it since out last trip a couple of weeks ago. 

But things don't always go to plan.  10 minutes from our home the ute gracefully ground to a stop and refused to be revived.  Everything looked fine, in fact I had just picked it up from a service the evening before and filled the tank 15 minutes ago.  An hour later the tow truck turned up and that was the end of the trip.

One view the weekend is as an utter waste of one of the owner builder's prized possessions - a long weekend.

The other perspective is to see it as yet another example of how well God cares for us.  Consider this:

• We broke down beside a grassy verge which was safely off the busy road and perfect for tow truck access. 
• We hadn't left the previous night after work (like 10,000 plus other people had) - which would have meant a long dark wait in sub zero temperatures.
• Our roadside assistance package provides for 20km free towing - exactly the distance the tow truck travelled to our mechanic's workshop.
• The tow truck's next job took him within a 15 minute walk of our place - no need to "phone a friend".
• Saturday night Nette suddenly became very unwell - it would have been much harder to care for her in a cold, unfinished house with no running water and an outside loo.

You know, even from an owner builder's perspective it wasn't a total loss as I spent the unplanned time tiling our ensuite.  A job I'd been putting off for yonks in preference to the house project.

Conclusion - God is good.

Beating the enemy - dust

The Rolls Royce of sanders

I had long concluded that when it came to sanding there was always going to be dust on the hanky when I blew my nose at the end of the day - even with the brilliant Dust-Be-Gone dust mask.

But all that changed on the weekend when I sanded the hardwood flooring in one of the upstairs' bedrooms with my Festool RS100CQ sander connected to the Festool CT26E dust extractor (which is a euphemism for "vacuum cleaner").

After a day of sanding, the hanky was clean - not a speck.  Now that's impressive.

You may ask: why sand an entire floor with a 1/3 sheet sander?  Well, two reasons:

1. We don't want every imperfection eradicated, if that were the case we'd use laminate flooring over a chipboard floor. No, we want a floor that has some character but no splinters.
2. For the cost of hiring a floor sander I purchased the the RS100CQ second hand. And as sanders go - it is the Rolls Royce.

Shedding



The shed - almost open for business

It's taken a few weekends but the shed is done.  Well, almost - I still need to get the roll-a-door to go up and down before we can cut the ribbon. 

The shed was originally in Canberra and was given to us by friends from church who were upgrading their car accommodation.  So we pulled it down, labelled everything and trailered it to Pemberley.  Putting it up two years later has been a bit of a test of our memories (why did we write that on this piece?) and a real team effort with our son-in-law lending his tall genes at just the right moment.

Unfortunately the local wombat has discovered the shed and started digging up one of the footings already.  I'm not sure what God was thinking when He made wombats so annoying - I hope I remember to ask Him.

Showering praise

Finally, after 5 years of building we can have a proper shower at the end of the day.  We started out with a solar shower - an upmarket name for a black plastic bag with a small shower head attached.  On the first day we hung it on the side of the tank and had a cold shower.  The second night the same bag moved into a discrete corner of the shed and was filled from the electric jug - and that's the way it's been for the last 5 years. (Mind you, when you're only around for a weekend at a time it is surprising what you can put up with.)

So, it was with much joy that we christened the greatly improved shower this Easter and ushered in a whole new era of comfort.  Yes, it may look just like a red plastic bucket with a tap and a shower head- but when suspended from a rafter in the shed it actually has enough pressure to wash your hair. 

A huge step forward in shower technology

PS-Imagine the joy we will experience when we install the inside shower with actual plumbing!