DIY Project

DIY Refurbishment diary – Week 29

Well, the parquet tiles weren’t easy at all. It was relatively easy to lay them – but because they came as untreated I decided to stain and varnish them. The first stain was too red. The second was OK, sort of dark brown – but when I varnished it, the colour turned red. The third stain looked too dark and too messy as the parquet bits didn’t stain evenly. It looked absolutely dreadful. We had to hire a floor sander and sand the whole floor back!..

Then I tried oak stain – it also looked even more awful and messy. By this time four days have gone by and I’d just had enough. I sanded the floor yet again and just varnished it with some heavy-duty varnish from Sweden that was sold to me by the sanding-machine hiring firm. This varnish came in an antique finish which made the parquet bits appear a bit darker – the stain didn’t come out entirely from the grains, so the end result is a natural, yet "aged" kind of look. Actually, it looks quite good. But it took almost a week to achieve this look! I’ll never stain floorboards again, that’s for sure! Another lesson was learnt: I should have bought the ready varnished parquet tiles.  

Whilst I was experimenting with the floor stains, the guest bedroom also got a new floor. The tongue-and-groove flooring that we’d laid over the summer in the hallway and our bedroom now continues into the second bedroom – uniting the top floor. We have also hung a new, modern-looking fire-proof door, with modern handles. The door is made of ply and the grains look quite funky. I might leave the door unpainted – and just oil the surface. Anyway, this floor wasn’t a big deal to put down, so I had to paint it whilst the floor on the ground level was drying. At some point we were stuck on the first level – we couldn’t go upstairs nor downstairs as the floor stain/varnish/paint were drying… I used traditional solvent-based white paint on the top floor, it wears much better but it smells a lot. I know it’s not the most environmentally friendly paint, but I still haven’t found an acrylic floor paint that is as durable as solvent-based paint.

This week we need to finish the guest bedroom as our friend is arriving next week. I’m going to use textured paint (not Artex!!!) on the walls to give the space a bit of rustic charm and subtle texture. But instead of painting it with a bright Mediterranean colour (which the paint manufacturer suggests to do on the tin) I’ll paint it with white silky paint. I’m just interested in experimenting with combining rough and smooth. I mean, the walls will look textured, yet feel silky. I think the end result will look rather cool. We shall see.   

I’ve now started to see light at the end of the tunnel… I have a new flow of energy. I just want to get things finished.