Designs Refined

52 years and counting.

Antique Sewing Machine Revival A friend had an antique sewing machine in a lovely oak cabinet she was looking to dispose of, unless I had any ideas for another use for it. My friend had been using it as a side table, mostly as an interesting conversation piece. I named a half dozen things she could do with it within a couple of minutes and she was intrigued with the idea that it could be made into a dining room table, since she was considering leaving her current dining tab...Continue reading

Office Update: Part 2 Flooring The floor. Now that is a special problem unto itself. Originally the room we call my office was an outdoor patio. It was probably enclosed in the 60’s and done fairly well, except for the wiring, I mentioned in Part 1. The skylights were a wonderful addition as well as a beautiful large window, looking out onto a small private patio. The problem was the fountain that had been installed in the floor under the large window; a questionable add...ition at best. UGH. Wiring, again, and plumbing, not to mention the recess in the tile floor. When we had tenants, the fountain had to be covered for safety reasons. When we moved in, I wanted the raised tile covered curb knocked down, so the floor would be somewhat flat, giving me more useable floor space. I put a large area rug over the floor and moved in. All fine, until we were ready to deal with that room, and all of its various elements. Well, as the Walrus said, The Time Had Come, to talk of many things: not shoes and ships and sealing wax- primarily, that floor. Having been in the flooring business for many years, I knew what would work and what wouldn’t and, what I wanted verses what would work. I had thought of several options, but many of my brilliant ideas were more money and work than I wanted to deal with. First things first, that fountain had to be filled in. It took several hundred pounds of gravel, brick, cement and finished off with a smooth concrete surface. Having been an outside room, and sitting on a cement slab, it would be unwise to continue the solid hardwood floors that exist in the rest of the house. An engineered floor would be ideal, except that today’s engineered floors are all much wider and more modern than what we currently have. I wanted to continue the look of the narrow strip flooring, but did not want to use solid flooring (unwise on a slab foundation) and have to stain and finish it to match. Laminate floors, don’t offer the more narrow boards either. Luxury Vinyl Tiles, nope, what it boils down to is I am out of fashion! Too traditional. Nothing new here, move on. In the final analysis I chose to cover the now flat tiled floor with two 8X11 area rugs. I decided on indoor/outdoor rugs made of polypropylene, certainly not my first fiber choice, but under certain conditions, it is best. I had a beautiful wool rug that faded terribly from skylight exposure and somehow a moth infestation. I’m guessing it was moths, but fortunately they stayed with this one rug, and none of the other wool rugs. Polypropylene is a manmade fiber that does not fade and insects are not interested in it; although our cat might enjoy it for sharpening her claws! The rugs all but cover the entire floor and add a bright and interesting pattern. While the rugs are not necessarily a permanent solution, they are a happy solution for now, and much less expensive than flooring I did not love. But I do love the room now. Problem solved.

Office Update: Part 1 Looking for the silver lining this past spring of 2020, and our stay at home orders, my office is getting a much needed ceiling repair, clean up and general update. While we had tenants here, we had a leak in one of the skylights in what is now my office. Fortunately nothing the tenants owned was damaged and it resulted in an unsightly paint blister that I’ve lived with for more than five years. The paint blister was quite large, unsightly, but livable... and low on the repair listuntil Covid-19 quarantined those of us of a certain age. We had managed to stay petty busy up until April, with the re-upholstery on the Model A, but when that finished, we were looking at our project list. The complete gutting of our main bathroom was simply out of the question at this time. So, why not tackle the ceiling in my office? Seemed reasonable, we had planned on using a pre-finished plank intended for ceilings and already had samples. Like all projects, on the surface it seemed simple enough, at least to me. The engineer, however saw the problems that needed to be addressed before the pretty part of the project. Like, getting firing strips up to make the ceiling plane, or level if you will. He found variations up to an inch and a half. Then there was the ever present electrical issues we have had to deal with in each room as we worked room by room. The electrical problems never ceased to amaze, with hot wires left in the ceilings improperly disconnected. Other connections to other rooms making no sense at all. But room by room, the engineer has made code corrections and wiring is all correct and safe; which takes t-i-m-e, about two weeks of time. Not being able to just run up to the local hardware store, we were dependent on family or mail order to get supplies, which adds to the delays. All in all, not too bad, since we have no where to go anyway and there is always something else to work on in during the waiting game. Finally, all the panels were up and skylight wells were perfectly fitted and the ceiling has never looked better. Well done. But since, I’ve been out of my office for many weeks, I figured we might as well tackle the floor, since the room was pretty empty. Flooring story will follow in next installment.