Floors

Flooring is definitely the flavour of the week so it's getting it's own post. Nick and I have been working hard getting the wood floors sanded and finished - last one to do tomorrow. The quarry tiles are all down now and the bathrooms have had the cork laid. The carpets will only go down when everything else is done.

The reclaimed materials caused us yet another headache when it became clear we didn't have enough of the maple to finish the hallway. The reclaim yard were a complete pain in the bum and tried to charge us for more even though they had short changed us on the amount so I managed to find another source (determined not to give Morways more money) and we should be ok to finish. To anyone thinking of using reclaimed stuff remember to stock up on time and patience before you do!

We sanded the main room floor on Friday. All the wood floors are being finished with a couple of coats of Osmo hardwax oil which is very easy to apply and nice natural stuff. It's been useful having the flooring guys around whilst we do all this as they've given us lots of tips on how it should all be done. They mentioned that some professionals use a squeegee to apply the oil and since we had a large area to do we got ourselves a squeegee. It leaves behind swoosh marks and the odd blob if your not careful but I think i've got the hang of it now. It gets the job done really quickly and the main room floor is looking very lovely (or it was before the workmen moved back in and made it all dusty and dirty again!)

Quarry tiles in the greenhouse. I've cleaned the quarries in the utility room with brick acid which removes morter marks and tough stains. They've come up nicely so I'll do the same in here at some point. There's no underfloor heating out here - we had darker tiles put in with the idea that they'll catch the heat of the sun better warming the space and therefore preheating the air before it comes into our house via a wall vent. 

Cork feels a bit retro to me as a look (to go with our avacado tiles!!) but it's good stuff. Sustainable by it's very nature, requiring little processing with a lovely warm colour and very pleasant feel under foot. 

As promised, a picture of the sanding kit. Nick working the horrid little edging sander. You have to keep your finger pressed on the go button otherwise it automatically stops which means it's quite hard to get comfortable when shoving it around. It's surprisingly heavy and always pulls in one direction. Yuck.