Office Remodel - Day 3

The office needs to be done. No two ways about it. So today was dedicated to a lot of the prep to prepare the floor for the new office and start the prep for the painting as well.

Here is where we started. Osiris doesn't know what is going on.


Here is the floor, which is the real problem for the office. Most of the other elements we can adjust as we need to, but we can't put the furniture in this space until the floors are done. That means no linoleum, new floor sound proofing, and new tile.


So, no time to waste. The linoleum pulls up pretty easily. That's great, considering that we have little time to get this project done before the new bedroom furniture arrives and the office has to move upstairs to this space. (Keep in mind, this stage actually happened a while ago, about a month as of this writing. So, I know more than you do.) :)


Once the linoleum was pulled up, SPF scraped the remaining glue off of the floor to prepare the subfloor for a clean, flat surface for the next stage of the project.


These images make this look easier than this was. A lot easier. In fact, this was a huge time consumer. SPF tried lots of different methods to find the best way to remove the glue without splintering the subfloor or creating other problems with the wood. We already have to deal with some squeaks in the floor, but we don't want to have to replace the plywood as well as the rest of the floor.


When it is done, though, the floor survived and SPF did too!!!


Now that the floor is prepped for part 2, the walls need some primer for the new, brighter paint color. The walls have dried completely with the new joint compound, so they are ready for the white primer. The color for the walls is going to be light, so the light primer is important here.


At the end of the day, the I did the remaining edge work with the primer after SPF put up the painter's tape to protect the new doors. (Newish. Look to previous blogs to see the change in doors and windows.) Yet another step closer to getting the office done!!


And then they waited, and waited, and waited for the next step. Due to a wedding, some other travel, and the in-laws delivering the new furniture, we were at a stopping point for a while. Too much of a while. Stay tuned.

Refinishing Our Kitchen Cabinets - Day 5

Today the second coat of stain went on to the cabinet boxes today. Not a lot of work, but it is the last step before the boxes are sealed with the new, custom polyurethane blend.

Plus, I really like this photo, so I thought I'd share. Nice job, SPF. :)

Refinishing Our Kitchen Cabinets - Day 4

We have been doing a lot of experimentation with this cabinetry refinishing project. One of the main issues that we want to address is the final finish of the cabinetry. We don't want it to be too glossy, because then the whole kitchen would basically be mirrored. But we can't have it be too matte either because it is a kitchen and matte will more easily show grease splatter, stains, and trouble.

So, I bought a book. My grandfather always used to say that if you wanted to learn how to do something right, you should get a book and read about it. The book described trouble shooting ways to get rid of some of the issues that we were seeing, namely bubbles in the finish, thickness of the finish, and the final look that we were after.

So I am now mixing my own finish.

It's awesome. (Not because I made it, but because it works to fit all of our needs.)


At this point it is important that I start stripping and sanding the cabinet boxes as well as the doors. There are two places where the doors go all the way down to the ground, so those boxes have now been stripped, sanded, and prepped for stain.


This is how the stain looks on the stripped and sanded wood. You can see the unstripped side of the box (to the right) and see how different the colors really are. Keep in mind that this is only the first coat of the stain, so it is actually much darker in practice.


First coat on the cabinet box for the HVAC is done!