Thirteen-hundred . . .

Thirteen-hundred holes, thirteen-hundred screws, thirteen-hundred pegs.... and you ask where have I been lately?

It all started when my last customer decided to move his children in to a better school system in neighboring town of Cape Elizabeth. So he bought a new house. Nothing remarkable really. Just your run of the mill 1970s split foyer that saw previous service as a rental and was in need of some serious mending.

It seems the tenants left their dogs alone all day and they needed some relief. There were multiple spots like this. So the carpets came up and the urine soaked particle board sub-floor as well.

Materials were ordered

And the lumberyard conveniently delivered to the second story deck for me.

Six hundred lineal feel of 1 x 12 eastern white pine dressed three sides

Easy walk in to the house... except for the painful shoulder and constant tingling in my arm

So I pulled up about eighteen-hundred screws and six hundred square feet of piss soaked three quarter inch particle board.

and two layers of ply and linoleum in the dining room

About 30 hours labor just in prep work alone ....

... til I could start laying the pine floor. Its just about here where I threw my lower back out and had to take four days off  to lay flat on my back and have it recover to some degree of function so as I could stand up and would not dribble on my self when I brushed my teeth.

after a quick recovery I went back at it . . .

Got the hallway done

then I tackled the living room

Pretty good for a lame back and a sore arm that tingles like the worst funny bone whack you ever had.

It was slow going as I was trying to make sure they were as tight to each other as possible.

All set with thirteen hundred counter-sunk screws....

...for which I needed to make thirteen hundred plugs....

A morning in the garage on the drill press

Produces something like this

Ripped in to strips and taped.

Then run through the table saw on edge to free up the plugs

Resulting in something that looks like this

A day and a half crawling around on the floor with a bottle of glue and a hammer....

and thirteen hundred holes are plugged.

Looked kind of nice with all the plugs standing proud like that.. but they all had to be chiseled flush with the floor

Then I got to dance with the buffer for about two days. Using a full blown floor belt sander would be way too rough on the soft pine.

Then the first coat of sealer goes down

Then I dance with the buffer some more

And first coat of polyurethane goes on.

After two coats of semi-gloss polyurethane are on it, it looks like this

It has that shabby chic look to it. Another fifty five hours of labor on the install and finish.

Then I tackle the oak treads on the stairs..... not good for my bad arm

and after two coats they look like this. Not bad, considered they had never been sealed and started out full of dog piss stains. Hoping to finish up this week.