Can you spot the kitty in the picture?
I made a little progress the last two evenings. All (well, the majority) of the furniture is redistributed to the upstairs, the rugs are going to a new home this evening, and the old loveseat is on our front porch. Hopefully the ad on Craigslist will find it a new home too.
Tonight I’ll remove and stack the window and door trim. It’ll come off easily since I’ve had it off before for paint stripping/sanding; I only put it back up two Thanksgivings ago so the place would look nice. Obviously it didn’t come down again until now.
Then, this weekend we’ll start pulling up the floor. It’s fir, and the finish is 90% gone. We’ll be careful pulling it up, because the plan is to put it back down over the radiant heat. I need to investigate a little more whether or not fir is a stable enough species to go on top of the radiant tubing, but I figure it probably is. This is old growth fir that’s been there for a hundred years as flooring so I figure it’s pretty stable. Or, maybe that has nothing to do with it.
If you want a nice tan-yellow leather loveseat for $350, and live in or around Seattle, let me know! I’ll give you a “house-blogs” discount if you mention this post…
6 Comments
Jocelyn·May 6, 2005
Hey, not sure how much trim you are removing, but I thought I’d share a handy little trick that helped us. Steve drew a little map of a window and doorway and labeled each piece 1, 2, 3, 4 etc… He also assigned each separate doorway or window a letter A, B, C etc… Bathroom was the A1, A2, A3 series etc…
We have tons of molding and we didn’t want to face puzzling through it when the time came. Our little chart and labeling the boards made a big difference for us. You know how annoying it is when you can’t find stuff? We also bundled each group together with string.
Derek·May 6, 2005
I guess you’ll need some additional wood flooring, since you’re moving walls around? It shouldn’t be hard to find, unless it’s an uncommon width. I haven’t heard anthing about radiant with fir, you’d think it would be at a more constant humidity, with the heat drying it out. Did you have to get an engineer to figure out the structure? It seems really complicated moving walls, a friend of mine added a dormer, and they had to add paralam beams.
Nick·May 6, 2005
We will need some additional flooring, and I think it will come either from beneath the kitchen linoleum, or the foyeur - each are getting new floors.
We’re not moving any walls per se, but we are opening up two of them. Each will be replaced with an engineered beam carying the weight via posts to footings I poured in the basement.
Brian Heckel·May 7, 2005
ive read that retrofitting radiant heat to existing floors can be done by stappling the tubing under the subfloor then insulation to force the heat up. it is a longer reaction time but not less efficient. the electric stuff doesnt use enough energy to heat a room.
if you are successfull in removing the fir without turning it into toothpics please post a how too.
Nick·May 7, 2005
Hi Brian — we’ll be doing a staple-up job in the joist bays for the 2nd floor. Simply not feasable for the first floor since we have a partially finished basement we’re not willing to demolish. :) We’ll definately post the how-to.
Jocelyn·May 7, 2005
Hey, Nick’s taking a picture! Ok, I need to stop checking your site now!- I bet your traffic went way up today. No cat sightings for me yet.