To me, planting seeds is always a sign of hope, and though our home lot stretches across a vast 25′, through the magic of family we are blessed with access to amazing spaces where all kinds of magic growing happens. Almost all of that magic comes from the dedication, attention, persistence, dreaming, planning, weeding and general hard work of a couple of fine gardeners, who you might find featured in the photos below.
Below is something I put on Facebook this evening. I’m posting a copy here for any of you awesome people who are not part of Facebook.
Even though my bowling alley workbench is in the front porch and can be seen here only as a cardboard mockup, and the walls need art, and the window covering is “in the mail”, and so on, I’ve MOVED INTO A NEW OFFICE, above ground!
I’m conflicted between 2 tellings of the tale:
Option A: Man gives his business 17 years to take root underground, now confident that he can survive daylight above ground. He can be seen smiling and squinting all the time.
Option B: Man joins business literally below the ground floor, and after only 17 short years is promoted to corner office, with a view, on the top floor.
First pic is my new space (thanks Emily!).
Second pic is my view, from which I get to enjoy Eileen’s horticultural wizardry move through its seasons.
Third pic is an artist’s rendition of my previous office. 
In a feat of timing that I could not have achieved if I had tried, FedEx delivered some of my office furniture less than 12 hours after I finished installing and touching up the last trim in my soon to be office. Now I just have to find a really smart person to put it together!
Below you will find an unusual photo of the room as if I have peeled it out of a 3D world and flattened it on to your computer screen, and a photo proving that FedEx delivered, a photo of the door, and a photo of some of the angles in the room. As you look at the weird photo and try to make sense of it, note that the window is opposite the door in real life.
Below that is a video slowly spin around the room, which may make things clearer.
Today I put a floor down, on the floor.
The angle of the photo is narrow because I didn’t have time to finish the quarter-round along the edge, and I want you all to think I’m done!
It was supposed to be cork like the other room, and into the hallway, but alas that couldn’t be found this time, so it’s a maple laminate.
Yup, I made it green. O wait, technically “Morning Zen” because that’s a real colour.
I’ve been waiting for a warm day to search for the old metal hiding under layers of paint. This old house has heavy steel heating grates, and door hinges and handles and hardware that are also over 100 years old, so you can’t just pop in to Home Depot to grab some replacements. And I quite like the unnecessarily heavy and ornate bits that add some character. So Saturday was the day to strip metal.
As I’ve done a fair number of these over the last decade or two I’ve learned a lot about how to do this. The first two times I did this years ago, I used a caustic and corrosive and nasty paint remover, carefully “painted” it on, followed by a steel brush, then some knife scraping into all the fancy corners, then more paint remover, more steel brush, and so on. Nasty, smelly, glove wearing, mask wearing work.
But now I’m on metal set #7 and it’s slick and smooth. No paint remover, no chemicals. It’s easier, more environmentally friendly, and does a better job. The trick? I cook it!
That’s right, I make a big old pot of metal soup. Well, maybe it’s more of a casserole. I bought a big pan just for this from Value Village, and I boil all the pieces for about 3 hours. The layers of oil paint (and lead?) and latex paint and whatever else was on there all gets loose, and peels off, sometimes in chunks. Then I clamp the piece and go at it with a steel wire wheel connected to my drill. What used to take days now takes only hours.
In the pics below you can see a before picture, two shots of the soup/casserole on the stove, and a picture of the finished product. Take note in the last picture of what I’m holding in my hand. One of the door plates had the whole coating of paint come off in one piece. I fished it out of the boiling water and let it dry in the sun. There was still plenty to brush away with the wire wheel, but it shows how awesome the boiling technique is. I’m delighted to have that part of this project complete.
I was wondering why I had no new photo updates to share from my soon-to-be office project. It seemed that no matter how many hours I spend there, it just looked the same. With everything primed white, and then painting the ceiling white, it’s not much to look at photographically. And even though the walls will get some colour, my next task was to paint the trim, which is all white, and doesn’t really look that different yet, in a photo. And it seemed to be taking a long time. Eventually I realized just how much trim there is in this old style of building, when I discovered I need more trim paint that I will need wall paint!! So today as I’m almost ready to put some colour on the walls, I did some quick measurements. 86 feet of trim around the doors and window, varying from 4″ to 9″ wide, with large crown moldings, plus 40′ of 9″ baseboards, and 40′ of quarter round, and a few other trim bits. Now I get why I wasn’t getting anything done!
I guess to be fair to myself, I’ve also installed some missing sub-floor, done a bit of electrical work, installed a new light and been hunting for flooring, window coverings, furniture and storage.
It might be snowing like the dickens outside, and though I’ve finished painting the ceiling I will have to re-do some scraping/patching/sanding/priming on 1 part of 1 wall in the office-to-be, but check out this amazing find.
It’s a 22″ x 6′ hunk of bowling lane! And it’s not so much a find as it is a gift from a friend! I do believe it will become a workbench in the office. Surely overkill for the kind of work I’ll be doing on it, but it’s just too cool not to use. Plus, it will help me often recall the year I and my dad were in a bowling league together. That’s right, Otto and Les, 10 pin bowling every Monday night. Ah, the 80’s!
A man in his painting prime, which is different than a man in his prime, painting.
Or is this just a matter of Les getting caught up in his Manitoba roots and going all #whiteout for the Jets?
Alright, carpet’s gone, hardware’s gone, floor is bare, walls and ceiling are bare.
I don’t think there’s really a clear answer for how many layers of flooring I needed to deal with. Over most of the floor, I removed what was originally 2 carpets, but I would argue it was 3 layers, since the bottom carpet came off in a thin upper layer, and then I needed to scrape off the lower layer of broken down rubber backing that had been glued to the floor. And in the little area that had cupboards many long years ago (you can just see a corner in the bottom right of the pic) they had put down 2 layers of underlay, making it nice and squishy. I’m not sure where they thought that underlay was going to go, but good heavens someone used a lot of staples to hold it in place! I can only imagine that someone kept asking a summer intern to staple down that underlay 2 or 3 times, forgetting it was already done.
So how many layers of flooring is that technically? I’m going to say 2 and 7/8 layers. As for the contest guessing how many layers, I’d say everyone is a winner, meaning you have won a free latte or cortado with me. Just check ahead to make sure it’s a good time, PLUS, you have all qualified to help me paint. Again, just call ahead to insure there’s a paint opening for you.
