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Let The Doctor Solve Your.
DIY Dilemmas: This Week: PART IUNCOVERING A HIDDEN JEWEL IN YOUR HOME |
Let The Doctor Solve Your.
DIY Dilemmas: This Week: PART I
UNCOVERING A HIDDEN JEWEL IN YOUR HOME
Topic of Conversion
It is now common place to hear colleagues, or even the conversion at a dinner party about property prices and home improvement. The DIY market this year is set to break all records as more and more people plan to start a project over the next 12 months. Most homeowners today think it's a very good idea to be investing time and money into improving their homes. It is also personally fulfilling, and the return on investment can be high in most instances.
What's New?
What are the top DIY projects that are happening for 2007? What DIY are people all over Ireland carrying out to their homes? The answers to these question and more will be answered over the next 12 months through this publication we will keep you up to date with what's new in DIY.
Sanding and Varnishing Floors
In this issue Kevin Farrelly the DIY Doctor will look at a project which is very popular, and if completed the right way will add valve to your home. He will break this project into two parts and subdivide under separate headings. This type of format offers you and your particular project flexibility as you may not be required to go step by step through each separate heading depending on the condition of your flooring. Flooring is the general term best used to describe the boarding laid over a floor's structural elements.
Hidden Jewel
How many people have you spoken to who can relate this exact story to you or may be it has happened to you. You have just purchased a 40 year old house and were in the process of ripped up the old floor covering when you discover a beautiful, if sometimes worn, solid wood floor. The question now is whether to restore or recover.
Inspection
The most important consideration, however, is the floor. Step one is to carefully inspect the complete floor for any damage. If you find damage how much of the flooring will have to be replaced. Check also if there are any visible signs of wood-worm, damp or dry rot.
Clear Room
Step two is to remove all furniture, rugs, curtains, blinds and pictures from the room. Now cover all that is remaining with dust sheets. If other remodeling is to be done, such as painting ceilings or walls, applying wallpaper, or a major job such as re-plastering the room, do these jobs first. Then any accidental spills onto the flooring can then be removed during the floor sanding project.
Tools and Safety Protection
Step three is to assemble the tools required to carry out this project. You may require some or all of the following: a circular saw, wood chisel, crowbar, hand saw, block plane, utility knife and drill. Other hand tools required may include: a hammer, nail punch, pliers, long-handled paint scraper, putty knife, hand sanding block and sandpaper. I would personally recommend also the use of protective safety items as follows: overalls, dust mask, goggles, ear protection and gloves.
Tricks of the Trade:
In order to establish what type of floor boards you are dealing with push a knife into the gap between the floor boards. If the knife can pass between the floor boards you probably have what is called plank or straight- edged type flooring. Alternately if you can not push the knife between the floor boards you will probably have tongue-and -grooved type flooring.
Loose Floor Boards
Step four you can now get started by sweeping all debris off the floor and carry out a second more detailed examination. Now make sure that all loose floor boards are properly secured by face nailing them with the required size and type of flooring nails. Make sure you countersink the nails well below the wood surface with a nail punch. Now get down on your hands and knees, and again examine the flooring for any exposed nails or nails not driven well below the wood surface. The reason for you to carry out this thorough inspection is, if any protruding nails in the floorboards has not been properly hammered down will tear and rip the sanding sheets on the sanding machine.
Damaged Floor Boards
Step five if you have identified all damaged or defective floor boards (plank type) required to be replaced. To get started using a variety of power tools such as a Jig saw to cut across the ends of the boards that you required to be replaced. Always make sure that you stagger the lengths of any joining boards that must be removed.
Tongue- and- Grooved.
Use a circular saw to make parallel cuts about 1 inch apart, in the center of the floor board or boards to be removed. You may require the use of a wood chisel to finish this cut. Now remove the center cut-out strip. This is one method used when replacing tongue-and-grooved flooring, thus allowing you to pry the outer edges away and remove them professionally.
Now cut the replacement board to the correct length and cut off the lower edge of the grooved side. This allows you to push the tongue of the new board into the groove of the old board, and drop the overlapping edge down in place on the tongue of the other joining board.
Finally fit floor board into place with glue and face-nail with the required size and type of flooring nails. Again set the nails well below the wood surface. To finish use prepared wood putty to fill any cracks between the newly installed and old floor boards and to cover over the nail heads.
Tips:
To stop dust going over the rest of the house, make sure you have everything you need in the room and seal around the internal doors with masking tape. Open any windows and exterior doors. Under the door way stuff with old newspapers this will also help to keep dust spreading to other areas in the house.
Time to Complete Job
Sanding old floorboards is one of the cheapest ways of giving your room a complete new look. Although it can be a dusty type project, the results can be dramatic and you should be well able to tackle a room in a weekend, including the varnishing.
Part II.
In part II we will conclude with the final stage of sanding and varnishing of your floor. I would personally like to take this opportunity to thank everybody who contacted me last year and who have found all the information helpful in their particular DIY project.
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