All the images I put on posts get some form of editing, even the ones I take with my phone, like this one here, which looks "a bit weird" but I think it is a better entry picture than the original.
This is the original.
I like clean lines and squared images, generally weighted heavily and hopefully slightly awkwardly to one side, just off to the side of where it should be in a by thirds dissection.
But, crappy photography aside, I thought I'd mention a little bit of the process I am going through to paint the floor of the office.
I has a wooden floor, but it isn't the same as the rest of our wooden floors, which are solid hardwood planks. Instead, this is a wooden parquetry floor, which is not ideal. However, since it is in the office, we decided not to rip it up and replace it as we did with parts of the upstairs, because the price of the room to do so would be an additional 3-4000€ (+ labor) that we just don't have and, it wouldn't make that much of a difference to our lives anyway. Wood prices have gone through the roof the last few years.
So, instead, I got down and my hands and knees with a small electric sander and spent a few hours taking the lacquer off the top, to get it ready for painting. This was super dusty, so we ended up painting the walls with another topcoat to ensure that the room won't be full of fine dust forever.
The paint we are using is "Betolux", which is produced by Tikkurila, a Finnish company. While it takes a long time, once dry, it is very hard wearing and can survive for a decade or so, before requiring some touchups. Our neighbors repainted theirs in the summer for the first time in 12 years, and it only required a thin coat over the top to smooth out everything.
But, what I like about it most is, it feels nice to walk on bare feet. I don't like the floors that feel like fine-grain sandpaper on the soles of my feet and this one feels like liquid.
Woolen socks on the stairs in the winter is a bit of an issue though.
It is a by hand job using a wide brush, but I would have preferred an even wider brush. When I did the upstairs, it was a 12 inch width, but this was 5. I shouldn't have sent my wife to get supplies. However, it isn't bad, it is just a bit harder to paint without leaving lines.
I painted the first coat yesterday with a 20-25% thinner added, mixing a portion of the paint in another can, so as to keep the main can clean. This coat is very patchy and soaks into the exposed wood rapidly, but also dries very quickly before the final coat goes on and then takes weeks.
Upstairs, I went straight into the final coat, but I decided to try something a bit different with this one and just finished putting on another thinned coat instead. As you can see in the image below, it is still patchy, but this will ensure that there is a very firm base layer that covers everything.
Now, I will let it set for the next week or so until it is quite dry and then consider putting on the topcoat. While I am in a rush to get it complete, rushing the painting can mean that it will take even longer to dry. Betolux doesn't breathe much, so if painting too soon, the bottom and top of the base layer can harden and be dry, but the core of it will still be wet. This means that the top layer comes in and the top of that dries, trapping the moisture in between non-breathable (barely) layers, taking a long time for the moisture to escape and the paint to finally harden.
Been there, done that.
But now, with two thin coats on and some space between, I am hoping that the finish of this room will not only be faster, but also give a cleaner and even more hardwearing result. With this being the office, it is going to see a fair bit of traffic and it is also going to have office chairs moved around it a lot. I will still get the floor protectors for under the chairs (despite them looking like crap), but it should hold up pretty well. I am quite certain that the desks are going to leave indentations in the paint still though, as they are heavy AF - but a sturdy office table is a must for me.
Once the paint is dry, we will put on the skirting boards, finish the cornices and perhaps, if we can scramble some money together, buy the cupboards, so as to put in all the crap that is currently residing in the living.
I have learned a lot during this renovation so far and I am sure that I will learn more once we start moving the work into the garden and also the basement eventually. Lots and lots of mistakes have been made along the way and if I could go back, I would do things a bit differently. But all in all, it has gone pretty smoothly, but far, far more expensive than first estimated, and then those prices have bumped again with the "Pandemic and War" premiums that get applied to everything, whether they are affected by conditions or not.
If I ever buy another house though - I think I might start from scratch and build a brand new house, with professionals to do all the work. And I can just watch from the sidelines and pay the bills.
It is that last part that is the problem.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
