Extensions - Flooring
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Library Floor Has New Look
Two weekends ago we began preparations for laying the flooring in our new library. As I’ve shared previously our timber is second hand timber, stored for several years from when we salvaged all the timber from a two storey Convent school prior to demolition. First task is to clean the floorboards from decades of dirt, accumulated as they sat under carpet being tramped over by hundreds of feet. PC set up a ‘cleaning station’, wherein each board was placed in a ‘slot’, the ‘criss-cross’ saws were run along the groove of each board pushing out the dirt, sometimes the tongues needed cleaning too. For two days the children worked tirelessly carrying the boards from the…
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Library Receives Its Makeover
Once we’d completed sheeting and plastering our new library walls, next task up was painting. It’s currently school holidays here in NSW so this was a task the children and I could tackle mid-week. Jem (7) was keen to help, so once I’d given him a few basic tips on how to ‘cut in’ the bottom edge of the walls he was ready to go. Jelly Bean’s (11) job was to ‘feather’ his edges. Princess(14) helped roll the undercoat on the walls and Michelangelo (16) rolled the ceiling on his own. In fact he rolled not only the undercoat but both the topcoats too, there are advantages when your children are taller…
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Laying About
Whilst it rained over the last couple of weekends we turned our attention to inside projects, it was time to start laying floorboards again. As we are using salvaged second hand timber it is filthy work, cleaning enough boards for two rooms takes a whole weekend. Previously we had used a homemade ‘gizmo’ to clean inside the grooves and the tongue, this time however PC hit upon the brilliant idea of using a saw to clean out the inside of the groove, much faster and cleaner. The younger half of ‘The Team’ and I, were on cleaning detail and floor preparation each of the joins had to be sanded flat and the…
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Laying the First Floor
PC has been rather frustrated with the continual rain as it has hindered progress on deck building. So we have turned to inside projects, namely laying floorboards. We started with the loungerooom. First, the sheeting had to be sanded. As we are using second hand timber, we were keen to secret nail, not wanting more holes in the flooring. This means the floor board ends need to have tongue and grooves to be able to slot together. After research to find what was needed to make these alterations, PC discovered the correct size piece is unavailable in Australia. Never daunted he set up two routers, each set at a different depth to custom make the…
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Completing Floor Salvage
Monday last week we received a phone call to say the timber salvaging needed to be finished by the weekend and all timber removed. As we had plans to be away for the weekend we were in at the School this week working from 4pm until 8.30pm each night. Flooring still had to be pulled up. Timber had to be carried into the end room and sorted into size piles before exiting the window. The boys were troopers and put in a couple of hours each day before PC arrived after work to help. Koala was an invaluable part of the team as chief babysitter. We slid the timber out…
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Salvaging Timber Flooring
PC and Team have spent days over the last three weeks salvaging timber flooring for our extensions. Our local Convent (to the right, Church is in the background) is dismantling their old School (picture taken from the School looking out over the rooftops.) Remember my find of blackboards and corkboards? During that visit it occurred to PC that under the carpets lay timber, sitting on concrete floors. We inquired, researched and made a bid which was accepted. The job that now lay ahead was to ‘rip up’ five large rooms of yellow box, which we will then lay in our new extensions. First they had to roll up the carpets…
