In good news, we got a lot done on a couple projects that have been nagging at us for some time. You have to step into the Wayback Machine to remember when we first installed this floor in the studio. Nearly three years later and we finally got around to replacing it, something we've been meaning to do ever since we tore up the counterpart in the kitchen. The prefinished maple just didn't work in this house. It's too pale and jarring when seen next to the warm original oak.
As always, an early step was to buy the necessary parts. In this case, a little more than 200 square feet of unfinished white oak plus a transition strip to the dining room and shoe molding. Once finished every room in the house will have white oak.
Then you demo. We didn't have as much time for this job so we contracted out the demolition and installation of the new floor with a company we've used for many jobs. They always do terrific work.
Half-way done by the end of Saturday.
And here's the completed floor by around 1pm on Sunday. Far faster than we could have done it. Not that we'll get off completely because we'll do the sanding and finishing.
One thing we did while this work was going on was to tackle an overdue outside project. Almost exactly a year ago we installed galvanized steel handrails for the front steps. Most of the progress was captured here, and the final result is here. The bummer of the thing was, though, that the rail on the right side came undone, the one of the left was wobbly, and overall we decided that we just didn't like how this project turned out. As a wise man once said, "Do it right the first time." That's an approach to home renovation that we're still trying to grasp.
Here's what our sad little handrail looked like as of last week. Lonely, paint chipping, unsteady...basically it was a mess.
This time we wanted to make a wooden rail because we tend to like that style better. Once the design was set we needed to get the impact drill back out to make holes in the concrete for the metal bases that will hold the posts.
We made holes just slightly bigger than some nails and used epoxy to attach the plate to the steps and the nails to the insides of the holes where they could serve as anchors.
All that done, it was time to make the various wooden bits. We found a nice douglas fir 4x4 at Home Depot in the lumber aisle. This looks much better than pressure treated pine.
Once the posts were attached to the bases with a few screws we measured the distance and angle before cutting the two side pieces. We cut the first one a little long and kept trimming it until we got it just right. Then we made a duplicate. We carved these pieces out of an oak 1x12 that we had planned to use in a different project.
We added some more of the 1x12 oak to be a top piece and voila! We need to stain all the pieces and we're contemplating adding some vertical stiles between the posts, but it's mostly done and looks much better than the old steel one.
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