Shanty Town Living

©Kara Rosenlund

I am so close to finishing I can hardly believe it! Above is the living room, complete with my support team Esther and Rocco, the finches. I am three bedrooms down and only have the living room and hallway left. Just a few more days and life should be back to normal. No more shanty town living! 

Talk soon!

K xx

Sanding- Part Four Second Coat

Just incase you had forgotten, here is before.

What do you think? I am super thrilled. Once textiles and furniture are added this will help soften the 'starkness' of the first bedroom.

This time yesterday I wasn't particularly thrilled. I was suffering from what I call 'Floor Fever'. This is what happens to people who agonise over each and every detail of the floor application and convince themselves that this was big mistake. Mixed with exhaustion = Floor Fever!

My advice would be to take a step back and get some perspective. As I was told by a friend yesterday you will never be on your hands and knees inspecting the floors like this ever again, so take a step back and see it for what it is in relationship to the whole room scape.

Application.  I have been using a brush to apply the wood wash and muslin to wipe off the excess. This technique works great, however the time that is recommended to wait before you wipe the excess off was accelerated for me as it was a rather hot day in Brisbane yesterday. This happened both to the first coat and the second. Saying this I found that I had to water down my wash in the dispenser a touch as it became quite thick.

Mistakes: When I applied the first coat I followed the instruction religiously. What happened repeatedly was that the wash was drying really fast as I mentioned above, which I thought was ok at the time. I think that this may have contributed to my first coat's 'patchiness' and some of the wood wash getting stuck in the grooves of the floorboards (enter Floor Fever). The first coat is really important to get right, this is mine here, which I was nervous about at the time, as it sets the tone for the later applications. I actually ended up giving my boards three coats to try and minimise the patchiness.

With all this new advice and technique under my wing, I start the next bedroom today!

Talk soon!

More Sanding

After a weekend of sanding, edging, puttying, sanding and edging, I have some results for you!

We decided to go with Porter's Paints Wood Wash in the standard colour (no tint), which I applied today with a brush and muslin. I decided to start in the bedroom, as my sensibility tells me that the bed will hide any of my application mistakes.

I'll be doing the second coat tomorrow, which I hope will even out some of the lines of the application.

I think I'm happy so far, I have wanted these floors for years, and I think it's a good way to share the journey on my blog, especially if you too are thinking about white washing your floors.

This is not for the faint hearted. Our entire house is upside down, cooking is a bit tricky, my muscles are aching in spots I have never felt before, there is dust everywhere (you just can't help it) and life is basically cluttered and cramped. Saying this, I actually really wanted to give this a go myself and not hire a professional. Was I mad?

Floors are such an important element to any room. You don't realise until you attempt to do something major to them. They form such a strong foundation in terms of creating texture and tonal colour that dictates the room.

More tomorrow!

Such a big week - seeing Sibella on Thursday and Travelling Wares will be at the Powerhouse Market this Saturday too!

K xxx

Sanding Part Three

Thought I would share the latest on the sanding adventure. After doing a few liming solution tests (Feast Watson and Porters Paints), I hired a floor sander yesterday and sanded two rooms. I couldn't believe how easy it was with the floor sander. I had used the belt sander over the weekend to do the liming solution tests and that was a nightmare, so messy and really really slow.

What we have done is sectioned the house in two. Half of the house is empty and is in renovation mode, while the other half is completely and utterly full to the brim of all of our things. Absolute Mayhem... you know that kind of mayhem where you can't even find your knickers!

Hopefully over the weekend I'll have actual liming results to share with you... I'm so excited about this part!

Happy Weekend!

K xx

Floor Sanding

You know when you start something and really wish you hadn't... in the midst of celebrating the book launch of 'Little bit of this, Little bit of that' over the weekend, Timothy O and I decided it would be a great idea to get a start on sanding the floors before Christmas.

I wish I had some 'after' shots to share, unfortunately we are a loong way off the 'after' shots. For the first time ever I really wish we had a smaller house!

Happy Monday!

K c