Weather, wood, and winsomeness...

 

Well, after a full spring and summer of drying, aging, and just plain weathering, the wood was ready to lay. As previously reported, I first ran it through the table saw to ensure, as best as possible, uniformity of dimension.  I had 6" 8"10" and 12" widths but there was, as is to be expected a bit of variation since they were cut from different logs at different times.  

After sorting I brought them in to adjust to the temp and humidity of the house, although that's not much of an issue as our windows are pretty much always open so the humidity outside and inside pretty much match up. 

Because the kitchen, dining, and living rooms are all one big open floor   plan area everything needed to be moved to one side while the planks were laid on the front 550 or so square feet, and then everything moved again so that the rest of the planks could be laid on the back 350 or so square feet.  

In the middle of this, we took a week off, and went to a great wedding (Congrats again, Graham, Bekah, Monte and Leah!). While down for the wedding we also got to celebrate Carol's folks' 90th and 86th birthdays! But I digress...

We returned and set to finishing up the back portion.  All went well, until I discovered, I was just, well about 70 square feet short of lumber! But praise the Lord, I found a local sawyer who just happened to have some that he had sitting outside all summer so they pretty much matched up what we had.  And they were all 10" or 12" widths!!!

So I finished up with most of the initial work yesterday.  I still have a couple of thresholds to cut and lay and tile work in front of the exterior doors but here's what it looks like...

I really like the way it has weathered.  Because we'll only be lightly sanding, most of the patina will come through the staining.  

Again, this will be a New England style traditional wide planked floor so there will be cracks and stains, etc. (almost like a handscraped flooring such as that pictured below. These floors are, in some cases 200 years old!

Though I had hoped to be able to rent a floor burnisher, all I could get was a square (orbital) or drum sander.  I've opted for the orbital.  I'll use a rough 40-60 grit paper to take some edges off and then stain it, leaving it a bit rough.  Since it's White Pine the surface will naturally smooth out.

And then there was the matter of stain color selection and finish.  We both agreed on the same walnut stain we used on the outside of the house mixed 50/50 with Boiled Linseed Oil (number 8 on the pic to the below left) to lighten and to avoid the cost of "pre stain conditioner."  Since we'll be using an oil finish rather than plastic (often referred to as polyurethane...I strongly dislike plastic finishes but that's another story...) this will allow the stain to achieve a first level of finish and lessen the oil finish work by at least a day.  (The oil finish takes 24-48 hours per coat to dry).

And of course, because these things happen, our "Hunny" (dog) has come down with Lyme's disease, so we're needing to help her outside to do her business, give her water with a syringe and hand feed her. (I think it's probably the man flu since she really is suffering.) So what better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than lying on the couch watching westerns...

More later, but for now...

Solus Christus