The Laundry Room Floor

After he had practiced on the water heater closet and the half bath, our son tackled the much bigger project of the laundry room. His brother came in and laid the heating system, which was supposed to work much better under tile Jumping ahead, I can tell you that those "spreaders" are still too far apart to make an even heat, but it is the warmest room in the house. 

The orange underlayment is like a large thick honey-comb. My son was keenly interested in knowing everything about tile and researched all the best "practices" in the industry. He found experts on youtube and compared their advice. He even asked for the North American Tile Handbook for Christmas. 

During this time one the boys' friends from Alaska dropped by to check on us. He is such a help every time he shows up. He helped build the jig for the stair treads, help set the front door, and when he came this time he helped re-set the front door after we had undone it.  

Everyone needs friends from Alaska. They know how to do things. 

Now the excitement starts with the test run.

This concrete-style tile has a slight "pillow" edge. My son was concerned about "lippage" (those unlevel tiles that will trip you) but he did a good job keeping it to a minimum. Pretty good for a beginner!

As stated in another post, this was a clearance tile from Dal Tile ($1 each). Concrete-looking tile was not my first choice, but it actually does well in the laundry room. 

This is also the "mud room" for the snow-suit entrance. It is very nice to be able to corral all that snow-melt in one room and have the heated floor to aid the removal of crusted ice from gloves. 

The floor turned out very well and has proved very durable. I have accidently dropped heavy things on it and my thought (while I am gaining courage to open my eyes) is usually "You have cracked it for sure this time!" So far it has been okay. I would just sit down and cry if anything happened to this floor!

And now for the glamorous finish! Yeah. Well it is a utility room after all.

 

Adventures in Tile: the half bath

 One tiny room has never felt "just right" and that is the half-bath. You can do a lot with small spaces, those are places you can "make a statement" or "an impact" if you will for less money and less commitment than a large room. But it has taken a while to finish it. The walls had been white, then aqua blue (horrible) and then white again. And then to decide on the flooring... at least it wasn't going to be terribly expensive to tile!

Trying some things out. The large marble-look wasn't quite our "thing." 

We tried several other tiles and configurations of tiles and in the end the gray squares won.

Dry setting to check for fit and cut accuarcy. It was decided to give them a "border."

Tiles set! You see how much nicer it is to frame them with a border.

Tile was then grouted.

It turned out well!

But now we thought we could do something bold, such as paint the walls a dark color. We chose gray.

Do you know how hard it is to match gray???

???

And the color changes when you turn a light on or off, and whether you are in Lowe's looking at it or at home. 

It was called "Mark Twain House Ombra Gray." Not because we like Mark Twain but because it seemed to be the one that matched the tile. For a little while it does match, if you aren't looking too close.

The floor turned brown when I got this room painted. Grr. Not only that, I discovered the difficulty in painting dark over light: there are parts that just don't get covered of the previous paint and wall texture. Unless I take a watercolor brush in there and fill in all the white wall spots. 

Will this wall get yet another coat of paint? This isn't the last you will hear about this little room!

Using Plywood for Finished Floors: Yes, We Really Did That! Part 8 The Finale

 

Next step was to put the finish on. We chose a "varnish + stain" product (I have a bit more about that at the end of the post). 

We chose a route, and my helper and I started at one end of the house and worked our way towards the farthest corner where there was a window. Then we climbed out of the window, and reached in to do the last patch. Good thing we had such big windows eh!

There was quite the sense of finality when we got out the window, realizing we could not go back in. We had to wait for that coat to dry, when we went back and did the route all over again. And then again. 

TA-DA!

So what do you think???  

I am so happy with my plywood floors! They are beautiful and warm and match the ceiling color very well. They have been the right look for our house.

And now a  little bit about the floor finish, and I will mention this again in the update post. We chose a natural product to stain and varnish the flooring from a company called "Ecos." The one Big Mistake we made was choosing the "varnish + stain" product, thinking that was a great idea to save time. It would have been better to have taken the trouble to stain everything, then put layers of varnish on top so at least when the varnish got scratched, the color remained beneath. So far the majority of the floor finish has held up, but since the plywood is soft wood we have had some major scratches in one of our heaviest use areas. 

I will do an update post about how the floor has endured construction through almost-post-construction as we are in now. These posts have spanned 3 months of a summer, and it was quite a productive three months so there are other things to tell you about first!

Using Plywood for Finished Floors. Yes, We Really Did That! Part 7

The next step was this. I do not have a photo of me doing this because my hands were busy, but I did a lot of this, too. And we quickly realized that the gashes and splinters were beyond what we could do with spot sanding. 

The next phase was me wearing knee pads every day, my nose inches from the boards,  going over EVERY BIT of this floor to seal and fill.

I recall it took about a week.

 And no, there is no picture of me doing that. 

Do you want to know what I used to seal it in? 

GORILLA GLUE!

The standard recommendation to take sawdust, mix it with your stain and fill in the knot holes. For some reason, me and wood filler and such like methods is like me and caulking. We don't get along. I'm glad I did not proceed that way. (Later some one else did use that traditional method on the second story floor boards, because Mother was tired of getting on her knees with the Gorilla Glue. Clearly they did not have a talent for the sawdust-and-stain method, either. Good thing it was in a closet.) 

I used clear Gorilla glue in all those holes, and in the gashes, and then when I dried I went around and gave some a second dose, and even more on the worst ones. 

About this use of Clear Gorilla Glue:

It shrinks when it dries, so it is not proud of the boards. 

Yes there is a bit of a shine to it afterwards (looked like wee little puddles of water here and there) but with the amount of dust from living out here that shine was diminished over time. Besides, you had to be looking at it a certain angle to see any shine. 

I cannot tell if the floor finish "stained" it because those knotholes are pretty dark anyway. 

It's slightly tacky but with the varnish it feels hard. 

It has endured. Unlike our actual floor varnish. 

It was worth a try! And it did "seal in" all the big splinters and fill in the rough knots. You can run over this floor barefoot even though the boards look so rough, and no splinters will get you thanks to that Gorilla Glue!

Here is something else we did to prepare for the finish: some of the boards were a different grade and lighter than the rest. So we isolated those and gave them their own pre-stain to make them a bit darker so they would blend better. That also worked out well. 

Next post: the finish!