top five most useful tools in home renovation

In a moment of panic the other day, I threw one of my most useful tools on the ground, where it stayed for two or three more days until Reg found it (thanks, man).  The usefulness of this one tool (and the difficulty of replacing it) got me thinking about tools in general, which ones I use more than others, and how I never would have predicted some of them.  So I created a top-five list.  This is based on a number of factors, including how much time they actually spend in my hands and how hard it would be to go without them.  I am leaving obvious things off the list, like cordless drills, paintbrushes, and utility knives, because its no surprise how useful these are. 

#5 Putty knives!  Putty knives do sooooo much more than putty!  It pays to have several of them, and have some that are sharpened, some that are flexible and some that are stiff.  Cleaning junk out of seams, and corners, removing "boogers" from fresh paint, scraping old paint, on and on and on.  Such a simple tool, but one you could hardly live without. Part of our putty knife collection:

#4 The Bucket Boss.  Not that big of a surprise here.  Great for toting tools from room to room, keeping things organized and easy to reach:

#3 Dremel Multi-Max.  This is the only power tool on the list.  The Dremel Multi-max is what is known as an oscillatory tool.  It has a motor that drives a blade back and forth very fast.  If you've ever had a cast removed from a badly damaged appendage by a saw that seemed like it would cut your skin but didn't, you have an idea of how this works.  I was first introduced to these tools at the HMC boatshop, where we had a Fein multi-master.  These are the original oscillatory tools and are really sweet- and expensive!  It turns out that Fein's patent has run out and there are a lot of new competitors on the market (hence dremel's version at 1/3 the cost).  Anyway, we originally bought this thing to remove some crappy-looking wall treatment, and it has gone on to serve in an amazing variety of functions.  Scraping and plunge-cutting are its two biggest assets.

#2  Scraper and mill file.  Okay, technically two tools, but they go together.  I've already written about scrapers and scraping wood, so I won't go into it again.  But basically, I was very cautious about removing material from our old and abused wood floors with power-sanders and found that a really sharp scraper did a great job, without sander marks!  The mill file has got to be right there to keep the thing sharp or it will be useless in two minutes flat.

#1 An old, dull Stanley carpenter's chisel. (this is the tool that I threw on the ground that fateful day)  I bought this years ago at a garage sale.  It was a cheap chisel to begin with, but I thought it would be nice to have a "beater" to save nicer chisels from the things you are tempted to do with chisels that you really shouldn't do, like scrape paint and rough and tumble stuff like that.  Boy was this a wise investment.  So, you're probably thinking, that's not hard to replace.  But it is, and the reason:  chisels come pre-packaged in a fairly sharp state.  You'd have to be pretty creative to figure out how to dull it.  And you can't just pick up and go garage sale hunting in the middle of a project!  So the old, dull carpenter's chisel, because: I use it almost every day for something new, and because when I really had to, I couldn't replace it in a hurry. (thanks again, Reg!).

The chisel in action, scraping many layers of old paint out of the tight corners of a window frame:

HONORABLE MENTION: Halogen Worklight.  These things are invaluable since most interior lighting isn't bright enough to illuminate a wall you are painting so that you see the spots you missed, or the floor while you are doing fine detail work.  And for some reason, Daisy really loves sitting right in front of them!

Daisy says "Bye, and thanks for reading our blog!!"

We get by with a little help from our friends (and family!)

Momentum is really building at the 707 Project!  And as the title of this post suggests, it is largely due to a little (or a lot) of help from friends and family.

While I worked on floors, Karin focused on completing a bathroom (kind of important, huh?). She totally cleaned and repainted everything (amazing what paint does).  We installed a new toilet (more on that later).  And we now have a new shower head, faucet, and shower curtain.

One day, I was so tired that I found a spot on our day bed in the garage and took a little snooze....

Daisy says, "Hey man!  Get to work!!"

Bathroom done!!

That toilet you see is there and functioning largely due (once again) to our good buddy Kevin.  When we pulled the old toilet off, the existing flange was old and deteriorating.  We couldn't simply install a new toilet on top of it.  So we got to go back underneath the house like coal miners.  We haven't had much rain in the past two months, so it was way dustier than before.  Kevin's a real trouper, and we went under there and just got it done.  The hamburger he got in return is nowhere near enough repayment.  Hopefully the day will come when he needs our help as much as we have needed his.

Beautiful!!

Last week, Karin's parent arrived with a big pickup truck full of furniture we left in Michigan three years ago and Karin's beloved 1973 VW camper bus (also full of furniture).

Here's the rig before departure.

On the road.

Stopping by my parents' house in Kalamzoo for more furniture!!

Ready to roll!!

Before the in-laws arrived, we needed to get a bedroom ready, and fast!!  Once again, a friend comes to the rescue:

While Karin and I were at work one day, our friend Danielle (Kevin's wife) came by and painted the front bedroom.  This turned out to be the first completed room!!  What a relief it was to see this!!

Of all the help we have received from people these past couple of months, none was more crucial than the gracious hospitality of Raph.  When we asked him if we could stay at his house for the month of October, he said sure (even though we were bringing along a cat and a dog).  It probably seemed like a good idea, since he was going to be gone most of that month, and we could keep his plants alive, get his mail, etc.  Well, little did he know we would be there almost two months!  We would have been in a real pickle, since we couldn't close on our house any sooner and had made arrangements for a new tenant to move in to our apartment.  It's safe to say that Raphael saved the day!  Here he is on Halloween night, he doesn't normally dress this way!

Floor project results

Phase 1 of the floor project is mostly complete!  We've sanded and re-finished one bedroom, one hallway, and the living room (the back room).  The living room needs one more coat, but that has been put off for a little while due to some foul turpentine (long story).

Here's what it looked like before sanding.

Sanding, as with all the other rooms, took FOREVER!!!

 Daisy wants to help.

Starting to look better!

Daisy inspects.

Corners, edges, and details went on for hours!

Voila!  Finished product.  Still needs another coat or two....

Daisy approves!

scraping, scraping, scraping

Wow, October is gone and its been 20 some days since I last updated the blog.  A lot of work has been put in during this time, but progress has been slow.  Essentially every aspect of the floor project has taken at least 4 times longer than expected.  Clearly we (I) need to adjust my expectations!  That said, the results so far have been good.

The two bedroom floors we are working on were at one time carpeted.  The previous inhabitants used tack strips along the walls and glue on the floor.  This presents an immediate challenge because before the floor can be sanded, foreign substances must be removed as much as possible.  While the temptation to sand it right off is great, patience pays off in the long run as sanding would simply heat up the glue and spread it around.  So the best way to do this is by scraping.

I'm actually a big fan of scraping as a means of surfacing wood.  A well-sharpened cabinet scraper can produce a smoother finish than 180-220 grit sandpaper.  This is because the scraper is actually cutting very fine shavings off the surface rather than making millions of tiny little abrasions with an abrasive.  A really sharp plane produces the smoothest finish of all.

Of course my purpose was removal of foreign material and initial repair of any bad scratches or incongruities in the floor.  I'm also getting at the corners and edges this way.  I'm not aiming to produce a hand-scraped floor that for some reason seems to be popular nowadays.  We've already been provided with an "antique, distressed look."  And, of course, I'm not using a cabinet scraper, though its one of the handiest, simplest tools around, and I do in fact, keep one sharpened and on hand.  No, I am getting most of the work done with a standard pull scraper, what most people would identify with scraping painted surfaces.  When kept sharp, this thing can remove wood and associated surface material fast!  You can see that shavings pile up quickly.  The downside it that these blades dull quickly so a mill file must always within reach and I sharpen the blade very, very often.  So, a scraper, a mill file, and a pair of knee pads are the essential tools for this phase:

You can see the carpet glue that appears like a grey stripe under the left knee pad there.

Our focus last week was prepping the spare bedroom, the hallway, and the kitchen for sanding.  Then the plan was to sand those rooms, and oil finish them.  Well, only the spare bedroom and hallway are completely finished.  The kitchen is around 80% sanded and will be finished at the same time as the master bedroom and the family room (we are calling it the back room); approximately this coming weekend (ever the optimist).

Here's the spare bedroom in the middle of prep-work.  There was a lot of glue down on this floor and scraping/prepping ran around 8 hours.

Here's that same corner, after scraping and detail sanding:

And finally then to the sanding:

We used an orbital sander (less aggressive) as we weren't interested in re-surfacing the floor.  We kind of like the distressed look that it came with.  We were mostly just interested in prepping the surface for re-finishing.  The primary goal here is to simply remove the old finish and smooth it out (removing orbital sander marks).  I won't go into detail, but this was incredibly time consuming and we used a TON of sandpaper.  The results were good though.  Here's the bedroom again, freshly sanded:

And here's the hallway:

And here's the kitchen, part way through sanding with the sander there in the middle:

I'll write more about the finish we used soon, but here are some preliminary results:

In the meantime, we have also been prepping and priming walls for paint:

Daisy finds all this work to be very boring:

Stay tuned for more!!