by Gail on August 26, 2010
We’re leaving the basement floor finished as concrete. After curing for a few months, we had the floor sanded to take the paint/stains/construction glue off. It did not really smooth the finish that much. However, we decided to add some warmth to the finish by acid-etching the concrete. This only works on clean concrete.
The materials and help came from StarPatch in Burnaby.
The first sample in a closet. Note the staining on the wall. This is a 1:1 concentration of copper first, with a full concentration of terra cotta on top. We decided it was too dark.
So I tried a full concentration of copper in another closet, and masked off the wall first. This was better.
After cleaning, all the walls were masked.
Copper is sprayed on, full strength.
Terra cotta is sprayed on along the grid lines. It is the acid yellow colour when it first goes on.
Drying/the acid reaction requires at least 4 hours. I left it overnight. Then, the chemistry is brought to neutral with the application of baking soda water. The floor is mopped and flooded about 10 times until the rinse water runs clear.
a view of the gridded floor
The bedroom just has copper, with a bit of terra cotta around the edge, no grid. After the staining is thoroughly cleaned/rinsed off and dried, water-based acrylic sealer is applied. It intensifies the colour.
by Gail on August 22, 2010
After a week of waiting for trades to show up when they promised earlier in the week, they all showed up on Friday.
The upshot of the day’s labour is that we have LIGHTS,
These are temporary light fixtures while we do all the finishing activities that might break the permanent fixtures
we have HOT WATER, and we have a massive cabinet in the bedroom/bathroom.
The cabinet/furniture maker is Vincent Lang, who has a workshop near Sechelt. He has built the unit (and the kitchen cabinets) out of formaldehyde-free 3/4″ plywood. I was able to choose the alder veneer before it was laid up, and Vincent custom-mixed the stain, finishing the cover coat with a tough, green finish, as well as designed the doors to match a photograph of a cabinet I showed him from a magazine. Local trade, quality construction (included mortise and tenon drawers, soft-closing hardware, etc.) No particle board in our house if I can help it! I confess that a flood in our apartment convinced us that particle board cabinetry, such as the IKEA cabinets, falls apart when it gets wet. Not sustainable.
The bedroom side of the cabinet
A view of the bathroom side of the cabinet. Hardware is yet to be installed.
Plus, I filled in my spare time cleaning and cutting flooring to its useful length. Very satisfying progress.
On demand hot water heater
Let me tell you about the hot water heater. It’s a Navien CR180 on demand gas fixture, which claims 98% energy efficiency, “the highest in the industry.” And “best gallons per minute performance when comparing input BTU.” It has to be vented on an outside wall. We considered a re-circulating booster, which would deliver the hot water instantaneously, keeping all the pipes filled with hot water. We decided against it because of course, it requires more fuel to keep it instantly ready. So now the question is: do we just let the initial (cold) water out of the faucet go down the drain? When we get the $ together to install a solar hot water booster, the water going into the tank will be hot on sunny days, but it still won’t deliver hot water until the pipes have been emptied of their room temperature water.
