Learning to Love My Heat Gun

So, I started in on the floors again. After eleven months of inactivity, it started again. Who can say why exactly? Fear? Loathing? Voodoo? Boredom? Hell, does it matter?

First, as the tumbleweed photo below indicated, I had to do a thorough cleaning to find the bloody floor. And move furniture. And this was just to finish the dining room floor, which is supposed to be finished for Thanksgiving. 2007. Just saying.

Really, I'm embarrassed at how quickly this went. I mean, I could have had this finished last year.

Here is the before picture of the unfinished portion of the dining room floor.


I finally put the old pine plugs Gary sent to good use. Thank you Gary!

Here is a gripping photo of a round plug in a round hole!

And a puttied round plug in a round hole!

And here is the money shot: the dining room floor with all of its sanding prep completed.

Of course, I missed a few spots. Details.

Since things were moving along, I decided to start on the living room floor. The wood putty I use is filled with all the marvels of modern science: carcinogens, toxic solvent, and other sixteen syllable compounds. I quickly deduced that mystery finish on the living room floor was shellac. The acetone and ethanol alcohol in the wood putty quickly reactivated it. Shellac is a lot better than lead based paint. Since I knew that it was shellac that I was dealing with, I could benefit from everyone else's houseblogging experiences. For once, I knew what to do. I dragged out my heat gun, near virginal in condition, and went to work on the shellac. Sure, I could have used the drum sander on it, but I'd be changing the paper every minute or two as the shellac gummed it up. At a dollar a roll for the sand paper, this will add up quick. I guestimate that stripping the shellac may not save me time in the long-run, but it's probably saving me $20-$30.

The shellac came right up. There appears to be three coats of it. The first is a light cherry color, the next layer is darker with an amber hue, and the final coat is a fugly poo-brown that is so dark that I originally thought it may have been paint. One wonderful thing is that they didn't shellac under the rugs, they just did the rooms perimeter. I guess they had different sized rugs over the years. The rugs seem to have gotten larger over time. This is how I can see all the different layers. Here is a picture.

Here is the next problem area. This corner is going to suck. Even after I strip the shellac, most of this section will have to be hand sanded since this corner is too small for a drum sander. Feel the pain.

Anyhow, more to come.