OT ping Noreen

That makes 2 of us that would like to know!!!!!

JJMolvik (lil' sis')

I am not a carpenter but, we just had our floors done about 8 months ago. We used "VERTHAN" brand. They have several grades, ours I believe was called "DIAMOND" from Menard. It was not cheap it is 35.99 a gallon.

I have a walker and Gail is in a wheel chair all day long. we got the semi-gloss and we love it. The stuff wears.

The main thing with polyurethane is the floor must be completely stripped and dust free. It is the only product you need. If sanded clean and made sure the surface is dust free and anything else you should not have a problem with Polyurethane. Again, the old finish or finishes must be completely sanded away and and lint and dust free before the application.

Let me know if you tackle it.

Hugs & God bless, Dennis & Gail

If you want to make sure the floor is sealed. I have used this sanding sealer on desk tops and other wood project. I used to do a lot of wood work. Put this on after you clean up from sanding and before you use the polyurethane, it gets expensive if you use quality products. I have been told the premium grade polyurethane from "MINWAX" is fine also.

I have stated the premium grade in what ever polyurethane you pick. Most brands have two or more grades of poly. Hugs & God bless, Dennis & Gail

One more url to look at.

It works to read this one.

enigma spun a FINE 'yarn':

Lee, Stripping the hardwood floors is best done with a drum-sander, which you can rent from Lowes, RAC, etc. Pine will always yellow, and the old shellack-y stuff they used to use made it orangier/yellower than ever... there are poly's now that are water-based and guaranteed to dry CLEAR,not yellow. We prefer minwax brand for stains if your floors and trims need new colour. REMEMBER tho that if you're dealing with PINE, the samples at Lowes, Menards, Home Depot, etc are always on OAK and will come up different. As for stripping wallpater, score it, and spray it with a product called DIF. Let it sit, the surfectants' in "DIF" will help keep it wet, and the scoring will help get under the old paper. A wide putty knife will do the trick for removal. After stripping, wash the walls down with a vingar/water mix to clean up the last vestiges of the gumminess. Use a GOOOOOD primer before painting. We like Zinnser. We've also resorted to Kilz as a primer. HTH, Noreen email me offlist if you need more, we're happy to he'p!

It's the mid-1800s floor? It probably was waxed or oiled at some point. According to what I've heard, the remaining oil will make any polyurethane peel off. Maybe if it's dried out enough since then, one of the sealers will work and then you can put clear polyurethane over it.

But read the Yarn Harlot's blog first

She just redid her bedroom floor that was about the same age and still had paint on it. Remember to read the comments too, since there is a lot of good advice in them about doing the walls (and ceilings if you do them) first, then taping plastic drop cloths over the doors, removing the baseboards, sanding between coats of polyurethane, etc.

Pine is soft. I grew up in a house with new pine floors that were probably varnished but may even have been shellacked. Whatever it was, it wore off after about six years and had to be redone, and was very yellow.

=Tamar

Spike Driver wrote in news:I8GLh.495$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe03.lga:

thanks Dennis. i think the people i bought the house from did a lot of really cheap 'sprucing up' to make it pretty for sale. the floors started peeling (along with all the wallpaper) after a year. the exterior paint is also peeling now & i can see it was put on too thickly over weathered wood. the garage is not only peeling, but the incorrectly installed, cheapo pine siding is rotting badly... oh, & the 150' driveway, going uphill, was also done incorrectly (no base whatsoever, just cheap paving over dirt & an improperly set culvert at the bottom). i've estimates of $10,000 to remove & replace correctly. gah! lee

May I butt in on the subject of the speed (or lack thereof) of the Yarn Harlot's bedroom redo?

If you're being paid to do a job, it means that you're there for one purpose: to work. She redid that room almost singlehandedly while still running a household full of teenage girls - cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, responding to "MOM, - where's XXXXX???" a hundred times a day, working with her publicist on her next tour and working on her next book. Quite different from being able to focus eight or more hours a day on nothing but the room.

fiberlicious spun a FINE 'yarn':

and may I offer a rebuttal to that? When DH and I built our home, I was working full-time, actually 6 days a week, 52 hours a week (9 mon-fri, 8 on sat's) and HE was working on other jobs 4 days a week and we built said home in 1 month, footings to finish. We were also raising a family in between. Noreen

enigma spun a FINE 'yarn':

OMG, do you recall the movie, "Money Pit"?? We've run into lots of those... most people don't get it that when you start to repair one thing, it nine times out of ten leads into another project. I see you DO 'get-it:, Lee! :D Noreen

YarnWright spun a FINE 'yarn':

PS, a lot of what people *think* is PINE is actually FIR!!! HTH, Noreen

Shillelagh spun a FINE 'yarn':

Sigh, Shelagh, I LIKE SPMf, I have signed copies of her books. methinks YOU just don't like ME! :D Noreen and that was the Wisconsin house, and it was featured in House Beautiful, btw.

Lee,

I know how you feel.

My previous house was a money pit, I made very little profit on it after living in it for 14 years.

Good luck friend. Dennis

Oh, please do.

Uh, huh. Speed doesn't always win out over quality. And which home was that, and how many years ago? I think it's quite obvious from various posts from you over time that you just don't like Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. So, I for one, will take your home building comments with a grain of salt.

Shelagh

YarnWright spun a FINE 'yarn':

PS, contrary to popular thought, pine IS hard, oak is actually soft. (in answer to JJMolvik offlist) Noreen

My favourite trick for removing wallpaper:

score it - there's a lwonderful ittle circular gadget you can buy, but in a pinch you can use the cutting strip from a box of 'saran' wrap. wet it well with a mixture of fabric softener and water - I usually go over it several times with a sponge. remove with putty knife or similar.

Eimear, who spent last night doing just this!

"YarnWright" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@newsgate.x-privat.org:

pretty sure it's pine. New Hampshire 1815 post & beam. there's a lot more white pine than fir here.

lee

The wallpaper and the exterior paint are probably both peeling because of a moisture problem inside the walls. If you're lucky, it might be just that the thick paint on the exterior blocked whatever ventilation the walls had. But you need to find the source of the moisture: it could be either the roof leaks (let's hope not) or the vapor barrier. If they installed the insulation, they may have either left out the vapor barrier or worse, installed it backwards. If it's just the paint, I think there are discreet little metal vents (about an inch across) you can install in the siding that will ventilate the walls and stop the peeling. That would be the least expensive first-try fix.

May have been pre-existing. That used to be standard practice.

Cheap, at that price, but the money may be better spent on fixing the moisture problem unless you decide to do what they did: dump it on the market and move.

=Tamar

snipped-for-privacy@radix.net (Richard Eney) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com:

vapor barrier? insulation? hehehe. i wish! the only insulation in this house is about 6" of vermiculite pour-in in the attic. no, the peeling paint is because it was put on in one very thick layer over a house that hadn't been painted in, oh, maybe 40 years. i suspect though, that whoever did the painting pressure washed the siding to get loose old paint off & then repainted before it dried. the interior humidity in winter is a fairly even 20%. the wallpaper glue is drying up... plus i encourage the kid & his friends to pick & peel (makes a great haunted house at Halloween).

no, he replaced it about 3 years before selling. the bits he took out are all in the woods by my saphouse, filling a low spot where he drove his tractor. the culvert may have been pre-existing. i need to see if that's a town maintainance problem first, before i go paying to fix it. the clapboard siding on the garage was butted instead of overlapped. duh. lee