if we just had a living room full of salmon, we’d have a nice supply of smoked lox right now.

when the fireplace flue drops shut… while there’s a few logs (ok, 2×4 and 2×6 cedar trims) roaring in it… makes for a mean smokehouse. the 90+ year old cast iron flue is held open (in the up position) by a cam action lever. that lever, when not locked in just right, noted by today’s experience, lets go… dropping the lid, so to speak.

i was down in the basement, pulling apart the growing headache of an oil furnace to clean the nozzle and adjust the igniters, when i realized that my flashlight was in the living room. going upstairs, i was thinking “hmm, the fireplace sure makes a nice, ‘campy’ kinda smell.” further up the stairs, it got stronger. and stronger. walking around the corner to the living room, there’s a nice cloud hovering up around the 9 foot ceiling… yeah, that wasn’t there earlier.

my first thought was “the fire isn’t hot enough… needs heat to pull the smoke up the chimney.” no, no what it needs is a clear path up the chimney, not blocked by something like a shut flue. that part didn’t occur to me immediately. no, i wanted to put more on the fire… more heat. luckily, the flame was bright enough to take notice of the flue. the flue that’s supposed to be open.

after shoving a poker into the flue, mildly singeing my fingers on the cam lever (which is right above the fire… brilliant location, really), got the thing locked open. the fire, being able to breathe got toasty warm right quick. you know, while my arm was opening the flue.

ahh, the quirks of old homes. it still kinda smells like smoke…

i’ve got lotsa experience with open flames; working with wood, coal and gas forges, torches and molten metal makes you aware of what exactly you’re doing. makes the hair on your arms sizzle, too…

~

i think the nozzle is somewhat clogged, on the oil heater. the biodiesel, being a solvent, dissolves the gummed up heating oil deposits… sometimes clogging things like the nozzle, with it’s rather small holes. the flame doesn’t look as hot as it did a few days ago- there’s a dark orange spot on one side. gotta be the nozzle… which means i’m working on the furnace again, tomorrow. having the house warm is worth it, i suppose… and admittedly it’s pretty fun to work with… but i’ve got lots of other projects that are adding up.

tomorrow:

• rebuild the alternator in the rav4, which failed and left us needing a jump start at the airport, followed by limping it home before the battery dropped to a low enough voltage that would make the car stop. made it, though.
• plug the flat tire on my car, because some asshat (me) apparently left a nail in the driveway.
• clean the nozzle on the furnace
• fill up the 5gal biodiesel tank, because it’ll be empty by mid morning
• finish sanding the deck, so it can be treated before it rains again
• then there’s the bed that needs to be built…

more pulling of linoleum in the front bedroom…

6.5 hours later, and all the linoleum is out. the 16gallon shop vac was filled twice, with small pieces…

after 2.5 hours of hand scraping to remove the tar paper backing of the linoleum, and some of the previous paint

so far i have about 14 hours of labor into that floor. i’ve drank 5 liters of water, and gone down 1 belt hole today. guess it’s at least good exercise…

the carpet in the hallway practically took itself out, compared to anything else in the house, thus far…
no matter what i can’t seem to get a good picture of it, due to the hall being completely void of light. the odd thing is i put a shop light in the hall, and it didn’t get any brighter. the only obvious possible reason for this is a black hole. a mighty small one, but enough to suck the light away.

luckily the black hole in the hall didn’t do more… because the one in the bedroom sucked my ego away. more linoleum, this time very, very well attached to the wood flooring.

this is after 1 hour of scraping, followed by 10 minutes of 35grit on the RO sander.

at this rate i figure the room would be done by this time next year. i did a quick experiment with boiling water, and it looks like heat helps a bit… so i’m off to home depot for a heat gun, then trader joe’s for dinner. after crying, of course.

but on the plus side…. here’s roughly 700lbs of old carpet and padding, removed!

another hour and a half of back breaking labor:

that’s about 1/4 of the front bedroom scraped.

removing the lovely brown plush carpeting:

carpeting removed, showing the lovely asbestos-laden ~80 year old linoleum:

nothing says “class” like wall to wall greaze-repelling linoleum flooring… a detail shot:

luckily the original installer of the linoleum half-assed the job and didn’t bother stripping the wax off the floors… so the tar-based sticky mess didn’t… well… stick. it peeled up in 4′ wide sheets with moderate effort.

the floor is in amazingly good condition, probably because of the linoleum that’s protected it for roughly 80 years. they’ll still need refinishing to even the color out (some of the tar adhesive discolored the wood, here and there)… but overall it’s quite nice. the white-ish stuff in the photo is actually floor wax, which scrapes off easily.

rear bedroom didn’t go as well. linoleum, but this stuff is stuck. it looks as if the linoleum was placed over the wood, before the wood was ever finished. this is the result of 20 minutes of a full on assult. i think it’s the floor assulting me, though…

the dining room wasn’t enough to stop me… had to continue with the living room…

i cut the carpet into 4′ lengths with a hook knife, rolled it up and pulled it out… followed by the padding. this stuff is heavy. like, really heavy, for carpet. it must have been pricey at the time, given the quality and the “lifetime warranty” tag found on it. still ugly as sin, though… pulling it out, revealed more beautiful floors:

the corner detail, in each corner of the the living room and dining room:

the floors really are beautiful… they catch the light and glow a warm, deep color. nothing compares to old-growth fir…
this is after 2 hours of staple removal, and vacuuming: