The Pine Floor - Part Quatre

Things are really coming together in Eric's office:

I really wish that photo wasn't distorted - the knee wall is perfectly straight, but doesn't photograph that way.  Trust me when I say -  it's straight.

The electrical outlet under the window is for the radiant heater we're putting in this room.  It's the Flex model from Calorigen.  Since this room is in the north-west corner of the house and although everything is rebuilt and reinsulated, we're not messing around.  I'll give a full, sordid review later, since we already installed an 800W Flex heater in the guest room last winter.  It doesn't make winter any shorter, but it sure ups the comfort of the house.

Eric used his little hand-held Dewalt circular saw to straighten out the long gouge in the floor, and cut a 1" x 1" square plug to fit the length of the hole.  Everything's epoxied into place, and sanded down:

Here's an up-close beauty shot:

That's about as fixed as things can get, without ripping out the floor boards (and idea we did entertain today, though).  But more on that below...

With regards to the spaces between the boards, we've decided to paint a few of them with copious amounts of paint and evaluate the look when the paint has dried.  Then, we'll decide if we're able to live with the end result or not.  If we hate the appearance, well, then we'll remove the crud with the Fein Multimaster tool, and go from there.  Truth be told, if anyone dares to get down on hands and knees and inspect the gaps between the boards once the floor's painted, all they're gonna get out of it is a swift kick in the ass.

I should have given myself a swift kick in the ass for even having taken this photo:

5/16" of crud, bay-bee!  We're both (officially - yeah!) sick and tired of spending another moment on our hands and knees in this room.  To hell with integrity.  We're gonna paint over it and move on.

But Houston, we have a problem:

After much reading, we decided to use Zinsser BIN primer as a base coat.  It stuck like misery to the world to the knots, as well as the epoxy repairs.  But on the original floor itself, it scratches off easily.  We're not going to top-coat this three times only to have the primer not adhere properly, so we're at an impasse until we find a solution.

 

I have to mention that this scratch test was done mere hours after application, so I think Eric's really jumping the gun with his worrying.  24 hours later, it was much, much more resistant.   Eric's still skeptical though, but I maintain he's worried about nothing.

The Zinsser BIN is really thin and splatters when applied with a 5/8" nap roller, hence we used blue paper we bought from the auto body-shop down the street to protect the paint job.  Thinking outside of the box is our specialty - plus we didn't feel like driving to Home Depot for such a trivial item.

Eric did some more research after his "failed" scratch test and concluded that our original floor finish is probably Flecto Varathane.  This would mean sanding off every little bit (did you hear me?:  EVERY.LITTLE.BIT.) of remaining residue, and while this room only measures 10' x 12', we will eventually have the entire upstairs to do.  We also need to take into consideration that the floor has already been sanded down once, and that about a 1/4" was taken off at that time.  This is important because our floor is structural, so taking off any more wood with a commercial sander really isn't an option.

Right now, things are looking like Eric's going to take the floor to task with the belt sander again, much to his chagrin and dismay.  But that option sounds better than his earlier idea of overlaying the entire floor with tamarack (our wood-pusher had a deal...), or even worse, ripping out the entire floor and starting fresh.

Of course, these ideas come to Eric like little flashes of lightning, and then promptly get relayed to me at work by telephone, when I'm helpless to grab him by the shoulders, shake him hard, and say, "Get a grip, man!"

But first, we've had another collective "a-ha" moment, so...cue the sand blaster and stay tuned for part five.