1st Floor Renovation - Build Along - Pics

[brnhornt]

The flooring has been in the house for over a month. I easily have another 2-3 weeks of work to do before I start laying flooring....I'll make sure I open several of the boxes ahead of that so it can fully breathe.

We thought about the wrought iron...but didn't like the look enough to want to deal with the hassle of swapping them out.

[Kansas City Fireslayer]

If your subfloor isn't screwed down I'd take the time to do it. It will help prevent squeaks and you can't go back later to do it.

[brnhornt]

Good point...that was the first thing I did when the carpet was pulled up

[Mking143]

I'll be interested to see how you handle the staircase.
I went away for a long weekend and while I was gone LOML decided to rip up the staircase carpet, revealing a real mess. I thought about using one of those stair resurfacing systems, but way too much $. I'm thinking kilz and paint for the risers and trim, and some type of finish for the treads.

[brnhornt]

Yeah...tell me about it...I'm dealing with that right now. I decided last night that all the masking to refinish the banister and spindles in place was going to be more work than necessary. So I used a forstner bit to drill out the plugs and access the screws beneath. Thinking I can just pull the banister and spindles to finish elsewhere while I focus on the treads. First two screws on the lower section loosened up just fine. The first (of three) on the top wouldn't budge. Snapped the tip off of a couple screwdrivers trying to get it to turn. Everything I can see looks like it should spin fine....but not sure how the builder screwed it in...or if they used glue in addition to the screw. So I stopped there and am switching back to masking everything that doesn't get paint so that I can spray the risers/trim/spindles....then wait several days for the paint to cure up nice and hard and will follow behind with sanding/refinishing the treads. It's going to be a pain for sure.

[brnhornt]

Well that was a fun weekend. Lots and lots of time masking.

Masked and primed:


Primed, two coats of finish paint and masking removed:


Now to let the finish completely "cure" for a couple of days and I'll get started with sanding the treads....

[brnhornt]

Been pretty busy with work and life so haven't made as much progress as I would have liked...but..

OSB landing on the staircase covered with 1/2" oak flooring:


Living room painted and crown molding installed:


Next up is sanding down the stair treads and then stain/finishing them.

[Robert Adams]

brnhornt said:

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Good point...that was the first thing I did when the carpet was pulled up

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Very true. I have basically the same project for flooring this weekend and they nailed it down. Course screws didn't exist in 1960...

The project looks good so far. I may also do cans in the living room and a flush fan. I see you are in Cleveland. In on a plane back to dfw. Was in mentor putting in a new dishwasher for lomls mom. Samsung and very nice.

[brnhornt]

Learned the hard way...never use Minwax Polyshades on a large/important project.  Tried everything and anything...good/expensive brush designed for tinted poly, thinning the poly out, different brush strokes...nothing would let me lay down even coverage.  Hoped that a sanding with steel wool and then a second coat would even things out...it didn't..still looked streaky as all get out.  So bad that I didn't want to immortalize it with a picture.  I let the second coat dry and then sanded everything down.  Should have started that way to begin with...but I hoped that the Polyshades would save me a few days.


Now on to developing a stain/glaze/poly finish schedule that will give us the look we want.  Silver lining is that now the treads/landing/and handrail will all match 100%

[Herb G]

I'm sure it will look like a million bucks when you're done with it.
Keep up the good work as long as you can.
Winter is just around the corner.