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Friday, October 26, 2007

The Devil Room in our House

I've been telling people for about a month that I'd post some pictures of the new house. Here are some:


There are three things to note in this picture. First, the wood paneling. It's gorgeous. It's really thick, heavy paneling. Some would call it knotty pine, though I'm not in the know about lumber, so I have no idea. Knotty pine? Probably. We ripped it out. Second, the enormous hole in the wall. Would you say that's CRT television size? It is. This is the red-neck flat panel TV. The back half of the TV comes out in the bathroom closet. Oh, and the holes in the wall (there's another one by the back door)? Yeah, they were covered by the previous owner's furniture. The first time we saw them was in the final walkthrough. Third, yes, that is BLACK carpet. Lovely, isn't it? You can see Stoker gathering up the pink carpet from the hallway (pink and black carpet. Who comes up with this crap?). We ripped that out too.

There were black and white vinyl tiles underneath the black carpet. Apparently these kind of tiles may have had asbestos in them, a possibility that we were totally unaware of, as you can see from the photograph. Stoker isn't wearing a respirator or anything (but he IS wearing flip flops. They're great for working on the house). I think the little spots in the photo are absestos floating around (these spots don't show up in the other rooms). Or evil spirits. Honestly, it's always been difficult to take pictures in this room, every image shows up with spots in it. We call this room the devil room. It has a thing for being black (so we're going to paint it white. Or yellow. Take that, you devil room!) and gloomy (the paneling really sucks up the light).

Notice that underneath the vinyl tiles, the floor is completely black. We think that was tar. Underneath the tar was the most perfect hardwood floor ever. It was unbelievable. No dents or scratches. It was immaculate once we sanded the tar up (but since then, as Stoker has been rewiring and dropping tools, it has gotten dented). During the sanding stage we wore masks. But I'm sure the damage was already done to our lungs at that point. The problem with the tile and everything was that the day after we closed, we stopped by the house to see how it looked. Stoker thought he'd dig right in and start tearing everything up. We didn't have a plan and we hadn't consulted anyone about how to do things, so we didn't know that it was a good idea to wear a respirator. But you'll be glad to hear that we wore them when we tore down the hideous acoustic ceiling tiles in the devil room.


Here, you can sort of see the floor underneath the tar. It might have been a good idea to use a paint scraper to get the tar up, but at that point, we were so tired from scraping the paint and glue up in the OTHER two rooms. I think if we could do it over, we would use the drum sander because it's a tougher sanding machine, or so they say. We went through a lot of sandpaper. The worst part about this was that the tar turned into a dust that settled on our hair and skin. Also, the floor took forever to sand. It was very demoralizing.

So all the pictures have Stoker in them. But I worked too, I promise. We took turns sanding and I was the one thinking about pictures, I guess. This room is almost finished. We've already stained it and coated it with polyurethane. The walls have been stripped and rewired, plus we added a wall to split this room. We made a utility room where the back door is, and where it joins the kitchen. Now we just need to put up the drywall.

9 comments:

Nathan Marx said...

Wow, that work brings back memories. You guys are doing an awesome job (FYI the black stuff under the tiles is just the adhesive used to stick down the tiles - it goes black as it rots away into nothing). I bet the floors will look awesome! The aged wood looks really great compared to new wood IMHO.

Tell Stoker that he deserves a gold star for all his hard work! I don't blame you for getting rid of the knotty pine wanescotting. Can't wait to come visit your place in Tennesse!

Nicole said...

Hey! What about MY hardwork? I filled all the nail holes in the dining room. I sanded the edges with an orbital sander (Stoker did some of those). I sanded with the big sander. I scraped glue up for hours and hours. I did the second coat of stain in the big room...c'mon!

Are you sure? We thought the black stuff was tar. When we washed our hair that night, it turned sticky. I have read that back then people used tar. But you're probably right, tar might be too stinky to use as a glue for tiles. I'm pretty certain these were the original tiles, from '48. I think it was the kitchen. That's where my money is.

We're getting a bed for guests. Not that anyone will visit.....

cassi said...

Don't worry, Nik. I'll visit you. Someday. Hahahahaha. No, I really will. But I am going to take you up on your offer in regards to a ticket. So be prepared (and imagine that I sang that just like in the Lion King--it sounds much better that way).

Nicole said...

Ok. Good. You better visit. Be prepared? Is that in the Lion King? I haven't seen it for so long...

cassi said...

Yes, well, that's what I get for living by Kelly and Monty with their children. Lots of Disney movies...

Anonymous said...

That's awesome that there were nice hardwood floors under all that crap. Congrats on getting a house!

Nathan Marx said...

Eeeck... Sorry, I mean give Stocker a swift kick in the behind for not helping! Tell him that men are supposed to do all manual labor stuff, and it is the womans job to critique his work.

Sheesh, what was I thinking?

Well if Stoker should get a gold star you should get a diamond star!

Jodie Kash said...

Goodness! If that is a devil room, you have serious orbs, which are spirit energy captured in film (if you believe that sort of thing).

Nicole said...

That's right, Nathan. I'm the queen of hard work. :) Bring me a diamond star! (She says in her most imperial sounding voice.)

Thanks Erica! It's a burden in some ways and really great in others. (See most recent post for some of the burdens we've dealt with so far.) It WAS quite the reward to find hardwood floors under the ugly-ass carpet.

Jodie K, tell me more about these orbs. I totally believe in that stuff :) (sort of). I'm going to see how pictures turn out after there aren't any particles floating around in the air, and there's no more paneling. Like, when the room is finished. We're doing dry wall now.