Friday, December 02, 2005

Freezzzinnnn ASS & thinking about WOOD

We're in a bit of a cold snap. I'm personally freezing ass. The house remodel, knocking out a wall, increasing space and turning around the wood stove has put a chill upstairs. I used to have this great little set-up... stove stoked and heat rising directly above thru a 18" x 18" grate thru the floor. It worked. Heat was delivered. But with more space, and the stove turned around I'm a bit of a popsickle up here.
Downstairs it's warm, but there's a bare sub-floor, many paint cans and a bit of a mess. Slightly still construction with lots more to do. I'm determined to finish up painting this weekend. And take the bathtub out of the new room and put it in the bathroom where it belongs, and slide in a couch right in front of the stove. The real floor, the one I labored over (time-out I'll tell that tale in a sec...) will be put in at some point.

The Floor Story:
I bought over 800 Sq foot of Oak floor from a house that the RE Store was tearing down and recycling. I had them rip it out and put it in a pile and I filled bin after bin and dumped it in my truck. I think it amounted to about 3 pickup loads. My friend Scott was here when I brought over the first load. His comment was "well it'll make good kindling." Doncha want to slap someone when they say something like that? I sure did. And I still might. Or rather I'll show him!
Yes 800 sq foot of little itty tounge and groove peices of #1 Oak. Even though it was a bargain ($350) and in good shape, I did indeed feel like I was crazy. Especially when I realized that every peice had two nails in it, and there were many many peices cause they were only 12" to 18" in length. Well if it were'nt for one of the RE Store guys mentioning a cool little pneumatic denailer called the NailKicker I would indeed have decided yes I was crazy. It still was a great amount of work but the thing for the most part spit the nails out. The nails were spit out into a bucket and all over the shop. My friend Liz helped me the first day, still even with an easy tool and a friend helping it took me a full week working hard to denail all the peices. But the wood is indeed beautiful! Gourgeous red tones. Ready to install. So I'm freezing ass here and thinking about wood. Wood heat, wood floor, would that I would be warm.

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