Knot All Fun and Games!

Our floors are all installed! One seemingly large step forward... Except now we have even more work to do!

Today we filled knot holes. We are leaving the nail holes and small knot holes as in for that added character. Just basically filling the toe stubbers. 

We made a few test fillers out of glue, sawdust, paint, wood filler and every combination possible using all or some of those ingredients. 

We settled on a glue, saw dust and paint combo. It was our favourite look, and it dried the fastest. 

On our test boards we used a puddy knife. It applied well, but when it came time to sanding, we realized how big of a pain it would be to get the glue off of the edges. So I thought we should try piping the filler in as if we were icing cupcakes. And it worked beautifully!

Photo credit goes to Tatum!

Piped in

Smoothed out with a puddy knife. 

We have our rented sander all lined up and are picking it up today. We also have the fancy little application tool we'll need to apply the polyurethane called a T-bar. We decided to go with the same finish my dad used on his floors at the cottage.

 

I have never finished hardwood floors before, and it's slightly overwhelming. But we figured that if our floors could withstand 100+ years of Canadian weather, they can withstand our attempt to finish them!  I've watched a YouTube video a few times, so I should be good, right?! 

I'm not sure if you remember, but we had decided a while ago to use the same hardwood in our master bath. After we almost ran out of flooring, we switched to tile and had it installed this weekend.

We really like it. And feel a lot better about it requiring less care and attention than wood in the bathroom. We didn't quite run out and now have an extra 3-400 square feet of reclaimed flooring piled in the garage. 

They're still dirty from the grout, but they're just matte black 12"x12" tiles laid in a diamond like our mudroom. 

We also got our first "pop in" compliment today! A man stopped in to ask who our builder was because he loved our house. I used to stop in and do this to people all the time, so it was nice seeing I'm not the only one who does that! He's building a house near by so we're going to send him some of our contacts and colour choices. I wish I offered to contract it for him :)