Once our library floor had been laid it was time to turn our focus to sanding and polyurethane-ing the floor, therefore last weekend we hired a sander and began our first foray into finishing a floor. After PC ran the industrial sander over the floor a few times; Michelangelo, Princess and PC puttied all the nail holes. When we laid the floor we had secret nailed but as our timber was recycled it contained many previous holes. As our flooring was recycled it came complete with ready made ‘character’ in that they had been worn unevenly across their surface in their past life in a classroom.  To keep some of this character we…

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…

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…