Floors Finished

It was agony to wait, but we finally got upstairs to take pictures. The guy(s) from Reborn Floors spent 5 long days sanding, filling, scraping and finishing our upstairs rooms and stairway. Unfortunately, I didn't get pictures of every individual step because we were trying to stay out of their way, so we'll just have to content ourselves with the after photos.

We decided to finish with a clear finish—Bona Traffic—as we did downstairs so the floors are now quite a bit lighter.

The difference in the big closet is amazing. Except for a patch done by CDR up in the back corner with unattractive knotty wood (upper left in this picture), the wood looks gorgeous. This might be the first time it was finished.

Here's the stairway.

Now that I can get back into the master bedroom, I think I'll try and work on stenciling the frieze. This will be my last chance to do it before we move the furniture back into the house.

Floors Started

The floor refinishers showed up . . . 4 hours late, but they came.

We masked up everything to try and deal with the dust, but apparently they now come with giant dust collection systems, so the dust really isn't too bad.

Jeff and I had to go and do some scraping in the master bedroom closet. We had to get thick bits of linoleum and adhesive off the fir before they could go in with the sanders.

There is quite a difference between the before and after sanding.

Linen Cabinet Almost Done

I forgot I needed to buy new hardware for this one, so it's not quite done, but we're oh so close.

The floor refinishers are supposed to start tomorrow; I hope they show up.

Entryway Finished

Finally, the entryway is finished. The walls look so much better painted. It was really nice having someone else come in and paint the high ceilings; I just wasn't comfortable painting on such tall ladders.

Everything is still a little dusty, but I don't see the point in cleaning when the floors in the stairway and upstairs bedrooms will be refinished next week, creating more dust.

(The color is a little off in these photos—the Hubbard Squash is a more mellow butter color, but we've had heavy rain the last few days so we don't have much in the way of natural light. It may be months before we can get good photos, unless we borrow some good lighting.)

Entryway area after paint stripping and finishing

Here is a photo before we bought the house

Entryway area before

I'm so glad this project is finished.

Shellacked and Painted--almost done

My closet has been repainted as well.

We hope you all have a good Thanksgiving.

Painted

I'm pretty excited. The painters did the first coat today. They'll be back tomorrow to finish up and to paint the stair risers.

I decided to abandon the funky color in my closet and we've repainted it White Hyacinth—the ceiling color in the rest of the house.

Once we painted the master bedroom Ruskin Room Green, I didn't like the Orchid-colored closet anymore.

Almost Done

I've been busy this week. I finished staining the upstairs hallway today. The doors and drawers for the linen cabinet are also stained and drying in the garage.

That painted door is the very last one and will probably go in for dipping when we have the floors refinished—or I'll strip it myself if I'm not too busy with getting ready to move back upstairs.

The entryway is shellacked and finished. I finally got to pull up the floor masking today.

The fireplace is finished and the paint is touched up. If Mia ever chews on the fireplace again, she will probably find she has lost her cage spot in the living room.

Just a couple coats of shellac on the upstairs hallway and linen cabinet and we'll be ready for the painters on Monday.

Party Time

Our house turned 100 years old this year.

We decided a while ago to have an open house on December 15 (which is also a few days before our 25th wedding anniversary) — that's why we've been scrambling to get all these projects done.

We're planning to open our house up for folks to drop by and take the tour and hang out for a visit. We're inviting all our close neighbors, because they've tolerated a lot of ugly for a couple years now; I'm sure some of them are curious about the changes we've made to the house.

So, if any of you regular followers live close enough to Portand, OR and want to come, write me and I'll send you more of the details. I don't really want to post our address and contact info here on the blog. You can email me through my blogger profile. We'd enjoy meeting some of you.