Sunday, April 24

[gottawonder]

Today I am grateful for:

Beautiful spring weather.

I was able to let the goats and ponies out into their bigger pen for a while.

We got a little more done on the wood floor today. My husband says the nailer he got makes it go a lot faster. Now that we have the fussy edge pieces done, it should move along.

We went to see River, and it was a nice day for it. We worked on the obstacles inside, both in hand and ridden, and with the exception of being able to turn on his hind end, he did really well on them.

Then we rode outside for a while. It was really nice to be able to ride in the outdoor arena.

We came home and watched "The Proposal", which was okay.

I learned that President Jimmy Carter was a trained nuclear engineer (he had helped dismantle a damaged Canadian nuclear reactor while serving in the U.S. Navy), and that he personally visited Three Mile Island during the nuclear crisis in 1979 because he wanted to personally see the issue himself. The reactor had a pressure valve that would not close, and the reactor was reaching a critical level (overheating). The situation was resolved without a meltdown.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nuclear-accident-at-three-mile-island

Comments

[cf2princessawnw]

Cheer!

(and interesting about Carter!)

[ratunderpaper]

The floor is happening! What kind of wood are you using?

The sunroom had horrible linoleum over partly-finished even more horrible older linoleum. It now has a floating engineered floor salvaged from Habitat for Humanity (which Jimmy Carter had something to do with, I think.

[gottawonder]

Last summer, my husband salvaged fir flooring from a house as old as ours that was being demolished. I found the ad on buy and sell.

It will be very similar to the wood floor we have in the rest of the house.

He got about 1/4 of the room done this weekend, and the part that he laid in looks good. It will still need to be sanded and varnished before it is DONE, but progress is progress.

[ratunderpaper]

Salvaged hometime goods are my favourite. I'd like to find quarter-sawn oak wood, or reclaimed stone tiles. Reclaimed fir will be lovely. Good on you!

A couple of summers ago, people on the street got rid of a bluestone terrace, and we were told to help ourselves to the irregular stones that now edge the perennial gardens. (I should put gravel underneath, I suppose.)

[gottawonder]

We often salvage things. We saved what we could from tearing down the trailer, mostly to sell cheaply or give to other people. We save the laminate flooring and sold it cheaply. We re-used the linoleum that is the kind that doesn't require gluing down. We saved the windows and doors to sell cheaply. We got a friend to take the roof apart in such a way as to save the roof joists, which we then gave to that friend to build a shed.

We bought "left over" bricks (as in, extra bricks from contract jobs, still new) for the walk way outside.

A lot of the insulation from the torn down trailer from the roof space is going to be re-used in that friend's shed too.

Quarter sawn oak is scarce in salvage, but you can often find stones for outdoor work on Facebook buy and sell, but you often have to deconstruct their walkway/deck and take all of it from their property. Sometimes it is just available for cheap, and sometimes they will deliver for a fee. I often see people selling extra paving stones or bricks left over from a project for less than new price. Sometimes old bricks from torn down buildings go for a reasonable price.

What would you have in mind for the oak? Sometimes what you can find is old furniture you can dismantle. Old pianos that don't play well any more.

[ratunderpaper]

If we didn't salvage things, the 1914-17 house would have a peculiar renovated - not restored - look. So, we retrieve light sconces when neighbours replace theirs. We save wavy glass to replace broken windows. The original wood (doors, trim) is restored instead of replaced, wherever possible. Everything looks historic.

What I don't want to keep is bad renovation work, most of it done between 1960 and 2000 - badly applied paint, bad wallpaper, bad plastering, bad design decisions.

It would be nice to find reclaimed quarter-sawn oak flooring, as the original floor was taken out many years ago. What replaced it is in bad shape. Most of the houses around here still have their original flooring, but this one doesn't.

I brought home a load of bricks that were left roadside a few years ago. I have an idea for them in the back yard, but I've to finish what I'm doing inside, first.

It's exciting to hear that your floor is coming along!