Floors and walls; perform more or less the same duties and in my house both in need of some help. Mending wall is a poem by Robert frost discussing walls their fragility, their necessity and their drawbacks, 'something there is that does not love a wall' He questions whether or not we really need walls separating us. Frost grapels with the annual tradition of meeting with his neighbor and mending the wall between them, it is said 'good fences make good neighbors' Frost asks why? why, if they are good neighbors do they need fences? thinking about the same issue it strikes me as slightly sad that everything I have done so far at my house is either to keep the 'neighbors' out or fixing what they have damaged when they have gotten in.
On Friday the 31st I had my first visitor/helper (with the exception of immediate family) an old school friend Alex came out to have a look and give us a hand mending the floor. a patch in the lounge had been broken before I bought the place; I gather to give some kids access to the house. there was also a larger patch of flooring in need of replacement in the back bedroom due to the fire described in an earlier post 'fire & water'
Let me take this opportunity to say a big thank you to Alex; I really appreciated your help my friend. anyway Friday was the day to fix the chard floor so first of all we had to rip up all the burnt boards, I had some photos of Alex demolishing my flooring but they all disappeared so I can't post them.
Once we had cleared the damaged timber and made the resulting whole neat and ready to take the new boards it was found that the new boards were of a slightly different width and therefore the final board had to be cut down to fit.
A smaller hole where the fire had damaged a larger area was able to be patched with of cuts salvaged from the rest of the flooring that was removed.
Here is a quick tip; its a good Idea to pre-drill the nails at the ends of the boards or anywhere else where there is a risk that the new boards might split.
As you can see the finished product is quite a different colour from the old timber floor, it has always been my intent to polish the floorboards throughout the house and while this would make it quite clear that repairs have been made I am still inclined to do it. I quite like the look of miss matched timbers, in my opinion they give the house some character and a history.there is a kind of honesty to this kind of exposed repairs that I find apealing. I like the thought that you can say you've had some trouble, you've taken a hit or two but your mended and back on the right path. I've heard a couple people say this kinda thing since I've been out here and if they can do it I reakon my house can pull it off too. If this kind of patching is done well I think it actually adds to the look of the room; lets hope potential buyers in the future agree!
Monday the 3rd
Monday was the new years public holiday, my last day off work and just enough time to patch the whole in the loungeroom floor and tidy up some more of the wall patching.
I started by talking about how walls and floors keep people out but the poem really talks about fences, walls between neighbous in a house while they do the same thin the also do so much more, my house now has a sturdy floor, in some ways a solid base. Now I can start building up from there.
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