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Archive for the ‘House Restoration’ Category

Walnut Oil on Wood Floors

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2017

I have just finished following your instructions and redoing my wood floors.

I am exhausted.  It was an incredible job, but worth every minute because the floors are beautiful.

Having used the OOOO Steel Wool and Spectrum Walnut Oil – tried for the best, no cheap oil on my floors –  and even taking the most expensive oil route it cost less than what I spent on these floors the last time I cleaned and waxed them.

I went over the floor with a damp rag to get off the top dust.  Then, I used the OOOO steel wool, pouring walnut oil on the floor and rubbing it in with the steel wool until all of the dirt and everything else was up.  I then wiped that up with old towels (which I threw away when finished, although my neighbor is trying the same thing and she washed her old towels after using them).  I then poured more Walnut Oil on the floor and wiped it up with a clean towel – and let the floor dry.

My neighbor tried to cut corners and didn’t do this last pouring on of oil and wiping it up with a clean towel so she had a bit of a mess on her hands, because her floor dried sticky and kind of gooey so she had to start over again.  I think that probably had to do with the steel particles from the steel wool still on the floor.

I did not put the furniture and rugs back, but let the floor sit overnight.  The next day, my floor was sort of dry, but still with parts looking wet from the oil so I had to re-wipe the floor with a clean towel.   I did not use more oil, the floor just looked a bit wet and in need of something, so another wiping with a dry, clean towel to help the oil either come up or soak into the floor – and 2 days later the floor is fabulous.  The down side was having to wait two days for the floor to dry – meaning, I could only do one room at a time.  That was fine because the smell from the oil and essential oil of gardenias will be in the house forever as I go from room to room cleaning my floors.  I am exhausted so I won’t try another room for a month or two anyway.

I should note here that my neighbor did it your way by doing a small area of the room at a time.  Which means, when she messed up with the oil and it was sticky she didn’t have her entire room to redo.  She moved the furniture and rugs from only a part of the room and moved the rest of the furniture over while the floor dried.  She was also not exhausted when she finished.  It was just part of her general cleaning – which she does without fail from 10-12 daily five days a week.  I wait for the woman who cleans for me to do all of that work – but she drew the line at kneeling on the floor to do this oiling.

My neighbor is continuing a small part of a room at a time using the same walnut oil to clean and oil her furniture in that part of the room.  I don’t have the methodology and discipline to do that.  I want it all done at once.  But then her house is a lot cleaner than mine.  Don’t know how she does it, but her house is immaculate anytime of the day or night you go over there.  Mine – not so much.  I have to clean before visitors come.  Maybe one day.  And with this new way of cleaning and oiling the floors – I suspect that kind of discipline will come because my biggie was not wanting to touch or be around the normal kind of cleaning stuff that has to be bad for your health.  I was sure they made my family sick with respiratory ailments.  Could be wrong, but the mind works in strange ways.  Even being exhausted after I finished the floor in one room, I was not ‘I’ll never so this again kind of exhausted.’  The smell and feel of the entire house changed with just this one room having its floor oiled and it was exhilarating.

My question – how to I keep these floor looking good?  They look great now, but things do get dusty and dirty over time.  I can’t go through this effort many times a year.  What do you suggest?

Your original suggestion was that this happen once a year.  What do I do in the meantime?

Thanks,

By the way – I love the smell of gardenia’s so I bought essential oil of gardenia and poured a bit into the Walnut Oil bottle when I opened it and my house smells unbelievable.  You were right about the benefit of adding essential oil to the Walnut Oil.  What I especially liked was that even though it took a lot of effort crawling around on hands and knees to do this cleaning because I couldn’t think of any other way to use the OOOO steel wool and even though it took all of the wiping up and around with old towels, the smell and off gases of what I normally used on my floors is not present.  That alone was worth the effort.  I can breathe!

I didn’t look into what was in the cleaners and waxes I used on my floors and couldn’t believe I have been using something with a kerosene base.  Looking around at the stores, most of the products sold – in the cleaning and waxing line are all mostly kerosene based.  This is what I have been exposing my family to all these years.  I knew the smell was foul – I just got used to it and waited for the smells to dissipate.  Now, I don’t want these smells to dissipate, I want to enjoy the gardenia and walnut smell as long as possible.

What I really love is the way my hands looked and felt after I finished.  I didn’t have to wear rubber gloves because Walnut Oil is good for the skin.  I hadn’t thought of that as a side benefit, but I love it.

Another BTW – the woman who cleans for me has been converted.  Her mother spent her adult life cleaning for others and is now in a wheel chair.  They blame the products her mother used and she, unbeknownst to me, was looking around for something else.  After watching me and standing in the room with its new feel and smell, she decided it was better to clean the floor on hands and knees than to use what we had been using – so she has taken over the floor cleaning and oiling job – and thank goodness.  Not having to wear rubber gloves and seeing my wrinkled hands smooth out after this bit of hard work instead of drying out and feeling awful even with the rubber gloves, convinced her.

Anxiously awaiting your response!

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Linda Kucera Window Restorations

Friday, January 31st, 2014

Bettina Network, inc. copyright 2014

Windows in historical homes can be a problem! Very few of us know anything about restoring, renovating, fixing windows.  We do know a lot of choice names we call windows when they stick, leak, break, let in too much cold or hot air and more.

We met someone and had work done by her which turned us 180 degrees around because the work was done exceptionally well; the windows look as they did 100 plus years ago.  They  have been restored, not replaced.  It was a hassle-free time during which we gradually became very confident that the work done by Ms. Kucera was and would be top of its field.

Before we met Ms. Kucera, I tried to restore one of our windows which was in really poor shape.  Then I had to decide if we would do replacement windows, try restoration, who to call, what to expect, pricing – could we afford to have 53 windows restored? – and on and on and on.

We tried calling a window restoration company.  They were highly recommended and I met the owners while taking a class in Window Restoration.   It was a disaster. The man put stuff around my window panes to keep the air out that looked as though it was coming out of an oversized tube of toothpaste.  The goop itself was a mess.  I watched in horror as this guy squeezed this toothpaste-substitute onto my historical 100 plus year old windows that looked like wet crinkled up cement.

The stuff dried and clearly was doing nothing to keep the windows a bit more air tight, so I had to take out the window and spend several days trying to get that material off my windows.

I bought all kinds of merchandise from the Home Restoration stores and from web sites and was becoming more frustrated by the day.  Everything sort-of worked, nothing pleased nor met the standards of a really perfectionist historical house nut like myself.

Providence sent us Linda K.  She took one look at my windows and announced the screws were not right for the period of the house and its windows.  She would make no other comments except to look fairly disgustedly at me.  She looked around, saw that one pair of window sashes was completely out of the window.  I tend to be a person who would rather do nothing than do the wrong thing in a historical home because I believe the right process and person will show up and we won’t have to undo and redo with this method.

The weather was being held outside -sort of –  by a storm window alone.  Ms. Kucera asked where were the 6 over 6 windows which should have been in front of the storm window.  I hauled them out, she took them home and said we would talk again when she had restored and installed the window.

Well, it took a while, but when Linda returned with the windows, they were exquisite and beautifully restored.  She installed them and the window looked right!  Except the storm window didn’t add anything, but that is for another day.  The six over six was restored, copper chains looked quietly elegant and the windows went up and down with the touch of a finger instead of feeling the need to take a hammer to the sash to get it to move.

I don’t know how we will pay for those 53 windows that need restoration, but no one will touch them except Ms. Kucera and somehow we will get this house restored correctly.

As we talked, I realized Linda was not just someone who restored windows, but her knowledge of whole-house restoration was extensive.  We talked about things no one else ever seemed to notice or feel was relevant.  She was not into  part-restoration, part- renovation. Cutting corners was not in her vocabulary.  I remembered a conversation I had with a Preservation Consultant who was restoring windows for a large University and complaining bitterly because the heads of that institution didn’t realize the advantage to putting new glass into those old windows.  That old glass was so squirrely!  I told her she was in the wrong business and should consider a vocational change.  No reaction!  An old historical house needs to be respected and restored as it was built.  I loved every minute of the conversation I had with Linda.  Old glass is quite beautiful!  What can you say about the old glass on Beacon Hill which has turned purple and dreamy.  And who would replace instead of restore those windows!  One needs to be very careful about who you hire to do restoration work.  You are, after all, then promoting people and keeping them in business when they are really slowly, but surely, moving historical houses away from what made them special in the first place.  Brattle Street in Cambridge is beginning to look more and more like Sudbury.

The last time I talked to anyone about restoration was when I had someone replace a ceiling in one of my rooms.  We talked about the difference between restoration and renovation;  the pseudo-restoration jobs being done all over the country which were really renovations; and he agreed with me and added his own condemnation of those who were flying under a restoration banner and were really renovating houses.  He went ahead with the ceiling job and when I walked into the room the ceiling was down – he cleared everything out of the space between the lower ceiling and the floor above and to my utter horror put up blue board which he then skim coated with plaster and called it restored.  I cried all night and didn’t get much sleep because what had been a sound proof room was now so noisy that if one flushed the toilet in the room above you could hear a toilet flushing as though it was being flushed in the same room with you.  You could hear people walking and talking and I was a wreck.

He is touted for being a great restoration plasterer.  He is good as a renovation plasterer and talks a good game about restoration, but that job was amazingly fraudulent because it did not do what he claimed it would and he destroyed a part of the integrity of the house.

Having had that experience and holding the hands of many friends who have had similar experiences, Linda Kucera was the answer to a prayer.  She consults on restoration jobs and works nationally as a consultant, although her major interest is in windows.  Hopefully, that will change because the world needs someone with integrity restoring these old historical homes and she has that in spades.

Ms. Kucera can be reached at 781-561-5411 or visit her web site at www.lindakucerawindowrestoration.com.  Linda lives in Hingham, Massachusetts but her business is not geographically defined.

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

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