More staples and an unpleasant surprise

Stardate 19022011: Finished off the staple pulling today. But under a cloud. Settlement was supposed to happen but at the last minute a previous tenant filed a caveat. On the property. Preventing the settlement from happening. The first I knew about this is when the vendor phones me, obviously upset and apologizing  - I assumed about not cleaning up the property - but in reality because of what has happened. 

Unpleasant surprises have this quality to them, namely being both unpleasant and a surprise. You're out there renovating and you turn up a rotten board or a damp section of ceiling. Well this is unpleasant - perhaps - but not really a surprise. Or perhaps it's a surprise, but it's hardly unpleasant. You can after all cut a section out and fix it up. Unexpected 3rd party legal hassles - this may well be the epitome of unpleasant surprise. At any rate it makes me appreciate all of the nice people I've met out in this part of the world. 

So, without knowing that I should be keeping about the Kobayashi Maru scenario in mind I've torn up all the lino (before settlement) and now I'm facing having to finish off a job on the floor *just in case* this deal goes South and I end up with no house. So I spent part of the day pulling tacks and trimming in good fresh timber into my (?) new floor. The local hardware store had meranti so I used that to fix up where there used to be walls and I also patched the section of floor that had been attacked by wood worm at some point. I also used a some plasterer's tape and 

So where to next? Well who knows? All these are over a shed (admittedly 100' x 20') that was leased by a previous owner of the property who sold it to the current owner of the property. As I understand it the terms of the lease weren't met and so the current vendor was able to evict the shed tenant and sell the property to us with vacant possession. Vacant possession being a condition of the sale contract. So we'll have to see I guess. 

In the end timber remains a wonderful thing to work with. Such integrity and wholeness to it. And clean. Sawdust - is there any finer mess? I doubt it. 

And so the day ends with a cheap red. All's well that ends well. 

Staple pulling

All renovations start somewhere. In our case it began with pulling up the vinyl flooring and getting to the boards beneath. Boards always look so promising. You peel up the edge and they look all polished and half decent. They all but beg you to reveal them in the seductive tones of a new best friend. Encouraged you start to pull back and chip away at the lino and masonite underlay. With a shovel (true discovery always requires a shovel).

And so you continue the process of discovery. Like a slightly awkward date you get over the odd unpleasant revelation and continue on with high hopes. At some point you plug on because, well you have torn up most of the lino by now but if this were a date you'd be thinking "You know what, I'd rather be home watching a DVD, reading a book or what ever by now".

Now, the sane rational man inside you just knows that there was a reason why these boards were covered up in the first place. Especially when the other half of the house has exposed boards, but this, for some reason doesn't. But hope sprung eternal. And as it turned out they weren't too bad. Turns out we're looking at oak floorboards. A little bit of woodworm in a couple of planks right next to the carpet. And a little bit of patching to do where old walls were removed at some point in the past. 

Rotten boards but good sound bearers with no rot. Below is the old patch that I'll pull out and redo with some matching oak from elsewhere in the house. 

If this were a date I'd be feeling OK. Certainly none of that sinking in pit of your stomach feeling. There'll certainly be enough work to keep me honest for a while. The biggest thing to deal with is the staples. They must have had a brand new air powered stapler - cause there's staples everywhere. Man these guys loved staples!

Like all good renovators I tried the easy mechanical way - hammer it in hard with a hammer, cut it off with a Dremel, pull with my undersized pincers and then finally I purchased the right tool for the job. Big Pincers. 

So far I've spent about 4 hours and pulled out 40 odd square meters of staple. About 40 sq/m to go! For some reason as I pulled staples I kept on thinking about "The Shawshank Redemption". Don't know why. Just did. Perhaps renovating floors is like prison. Like doing time. But with any luck you'll get out at the end.