Monday, January 23, 2012

I Shoed My House

     I live in a 200 year old brick farmhouse. It is decrepit and unhappy for the most part, and has a moderate breeze on any given windy day (with the windows shut). This is giving me excessive opportunity to play Ms. Handyman.

     I am very pleased with my current project. The old wooden floor was quite bad, warped, mangled, and no longer sealing the hole between the outside and the inside. So Lowes being my hero I bought 1/4" plywood to cut and lay down over the old floor, spray foam to continue sealing holes, silicone caulking for the smaller ones, and a type of trim called 'shoe' to seal the whole shebang.

     Cutting the board was a royal pain, and required the procurement of three differant jigsaws. I cut all but the last piece with the help of my Head Fiber Cat, Daisy. My boyfriend came and helped with the last piece, and this is likely good because there is a very good chance the house would have been lit on fire before I finished cutting out all the little pieces of trim the stupid thing had to fit around.

     Here is Ms. Daisy helping with construction, mainly by shouting instructions and sitting on the heating vent.

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     So after it was all cut and down I had a brilliant carpenter I know come out with a nail gun and tack it all down.

  

     From there I began my shoeing. First I had to spray foam like mad, which is rediculously good fun and very messy. Then everything required caulking, which is very easy, fun, and not nearly so messy. The trim had to be cut to size and the ends cut at a 45 degree angle with a miter saw. This was actually remarkably easy and I had fun doing it, besides that there is no longer a breeze in that room! I'm now ready to start shoeing the whole house!

     Check out that corner. You'd think someone who actually knew what they were doing did that! But no, it was me! (and Daisy, but she really did more 'getting in the way of the saw' then she did helping)


     So there are my pictures of my now shod house. Next is painting the floor, I'm going to start on the trim today. Pictures of the finished product will come later. I was vetoed repeatedly on Electric Blue with Neon Green trim. So instead I had to go with something more subtle, but still very me.  
 

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