HOME IMPROVEMENT: Home stretch for the rowhouse master bedroom
Here are a couple progress shots of the paper mache paper bag floor at the rowhouse. This floor treatment is extremely low/no budget and DIY, with the brown builder’s paper layers glued down over the old, rough, gouged softwood floor, but it’s a big improvement over what we started with. Hopefully it holds up until the owners can replace it with a more permanent solution, but for now, it’s going to make this room inhabitable and dare I say, stylish (in a very boho diy way)?
There are some spots where the paper layers need regluing, especially at the corners and edges, but adding trim molding will help with that along with making this look more like a finished space and less like a construction zone. It already feels better, and when it’s dry, it’s now safe to walk on without big stompy anti-splinter boots (the old extremely damaged floor was definitely not)!
Overall, it’s a vast improvement and did a great job of leveling and evening out the moonscape of old floor adhesive, splinters, and cracks that this floor was before.
I was worried about how it would turn out and if it would even adhere since it was such a beat-up surface, but it’s working great so far. But wait… there’s more!
Look at the transformation after the stain goes on the paper bag floor!
Now, that’s more like it! With the stain down, the paper bag floor looks like burnished leather or stained and sealed concrete faux terrazzo (instead of like, uh, well we won’t talk anymore about how bad and gross it was before because we have moved on and upwards).
Today I’ll start putting down the first coat of poly sealer over the stained paper bag floor, and by next week I could be moving in here! After the floor cures, and more importantly, the air clears. The oil based stain especially is very stinky… definitely a project where you want to be able to open up the windows and use lots of ventilation to get fresh air in as it dries!
Hopefully that will give me enough time to refinish this new/old solid wood queen-size bed frame from The Finder Things (Thanks Morgan, for finding this for me)! I got the frame sanded and wiped down yesterday to get rid of the flaking finish. This bed frame is in rough shape but we’re going to bring it back.
I’m going to paint it with a metallic bronze/brown paint, maybe thinned to a wash so the grain shows through, then use Rustoleum Java Brown glaze. I scored both from the Oops paint bin at the hardware store, of course- the Ralph Lauren bronze metallic paint was $9 for the gallon, and the glaze had a dented can, and was marked down- double score! This combo will “antique” it and add some depth to the finish. Slap a coat or two of poly over that, then move on in!
If I like how the bed turns out, I’m going to refinish ‘Ol Piney to match. ‘Ol Piney is an old, plain softwood dresser I’ve had since college, and that was originally from a friend’s childhood bedroom back east (he gave it to me, along with his nickname for the piece, when he moved back to New York and didn’t have room in the truck to bring it along). It’s been a very serviceable piece of furniture, but could use a facelift.
But first, the stove! My landlord/neighbor put a new valve on the gas line yesterday, so I’m one more pipe fitting away from having a working oven at the rowhouse. Thanksgiving tomorrow means I am out of time to refinish the wall first before roughing the replacement stove in. But to not have to keep brewing my morning moka-pot coffee on my fiddly little single-burner alcohol camping stove, I can deal with an ugly wall behind a working stove, for awhile.
I need this puppy cooking in time to bake the cast-iron cornbread for Granny’s dressing (I add fresh herbs and apples to her recipe) and broccoli cheesy rice casserole (which I have completely reinvented with bechamel, cheddar, and fresh broccoli, in lieu of the cheese whiz, minute rice, and frozen green mush casserole of my youth…). The recipes may differ, but the spirit of them is the same, and they remind me of home, and family, and tradition.
Hope that you all have a wonderful holiday!
Read More about the Rowhouse Remodeling Work-Trade Project!