Finishing Floors Mary is still hard at work finishing the floors that were sanded over the holidays. Here, she's in the guest room pouring clear high gloss polyurethane onto the floor before spreading it out. The first coat is a sanding sealer. The second coat is clear high gloss polyurethane. The remaining 3 coats are clear satin polyurethane. She allows a day for each coat to thoroughly dry. Also, light sanding is required between coats. The first full week of January, Mary finished the office, exercise room and guest room.

Finishing MORE Floors Will it ever end? By the end of January, all floors in the house were refinished except the living room. The living room still has only a plywood subfloor and it'll probably be awhile until the original floor is restored and installed. Here Mary is putting the first coat of polyurethane on the Parlor floor.

Entry Surgery Here, Kenny is knocking out the original sewer pipe that was routed down the back entry wall from the bathroom above. I was dreading this job because it is so ugly in the crawl space below the floor, where the pipe had to be removed. And guess who always gets to go under the floor into the crawl space? Luckily, we removed the pipe from above in the entry. After the pipe was out, we removed part of the flooring and step landing where the hole remained for the pipe. Later, at home, I used the old flooring as a pattern and made new pieces to repair the floor. Another job well done!

The Dreaded Crawl Space While Mary and I were applying polyurethane to the parlor and entry floors we noticed that there was a very strong, cold draft coming up between the floor boards from the crawl space below. I think those particular floors required an extra gallon of polyurethane because of all the poly that dripped into the crawl space! I strongly advise women NOT to wear a dress in those rooms because, with the draft coming up from the crawl space, it's almost guaranteed that their dress will be blown up about their ears. This would surely be an embarrasing moment for all. In the photos below, I am under the parlor floor putting rigid insulation boards between the logs to try to stop the draft. I used rigid insulation because "furry animals" seem to visit the crawl space in the warmer months and rip out any fiberglass insulation. Notice that the floor joists are logs (typically 9" to 10" in diameter) laying on the dirt or rocks. In some areas, the space was just wide enough to squeeze my shoulders through and about 18" high. This construction would never pass inspection today, but it has lasted about 145 years, so it must be OK.

At left, going under. A summer visitor left their skin behind!

Looking back. Notice how the logs were hacked by plumbers putting in radiators at the turn of the century.