When we bought our house back in 1994, the previous owners left behind a lot of junk one of which was a cupboard.  This huge behemoth of a pile of wood with its stark white infirmary looking medicine chest color was more of an obstruction in the kitchen than the purpose it served.  So, we just stuck it down in the basement where it served as a storage for Steph’s accumulation of junk. The paint that was on it was a very glossy oil based white.  It was so thick that it took a few days soaking of paint stripper.  Because this is being done indoors in the dead of the winter, we had to use a stripper that was rated for indoor use.  Since I am rather old school and don’t believe in anything other than true and tried solvents, I was skeptical about this product, Citristrip.  Let me tell you…the stuff really
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Just in time for the matriarch of the Spritzer family’s visit….   Even though it was hard, I truly enjoyed doing it especially the floors.  I never thought they would come out as original as they did.  One lesson I did learn was with patience and practice, one can truly create a masterpiece. If you have wood floors that are in need of refinishing and you don’t mind creativity, please shoot me an email.  I will be more than willing to help. Next time on this series of the Spritzer Renovations…there are three pieces of furniture that Steph cherishes.  I will be documenting the refinishing efforts of these.  Until then, I am Sam Spritzer and thank you for following the Spritzer Renovations…..

I was going to post the final result pictures today but took a little detour.  I recently became re-acquainted with an old friend, a Chick,  from my kid days on Tampa Ave. in Albany.  She lived next door with her parents, brother and sister along with a part beagle named….Noodles.  Let me tell you, as cute as Noodle was she was the dumbest dog you ever met.  Anyway yea, Phyllis…she was cuter….she was one heck of a chick but I don’t think her parents would have ever approved of my wild ways.  She commented on Facebook post about refinishing the floors… Sam the floors look great. We took our carpets up and had beautiful hardwood floors that had never been walked on. Question, what did you do about the areas where there were staples that you had removed? We pulled hundreds and I’d like to fill in the holes. The
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When we decided to give the bedrooms a makeover because of Mike’s wedding at the end of June, Steph decided to call around and get some quotes for the floor refinishing.  Some of the prices we got for the three rooms were so outrageous there was no way we could afford it considering we have to replace the roof and windows.  So, I decided I was going to do it.  Much to my surprise it was not as difficult as it seems. I sanded by hand on my knees used an orbital sander.  Instead of using the little bag attachment to catch the dust, my wet / dry vac comes with attachments that allow me to connect the hose to the sander.  Since I am deaf as a doorknob without my ears, ear protection was never an issue.  Not one speck of dust made it out of the room.  Steph
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Steph was just complaining way too much about the sorry state of the lawn mower.  It was really getting hard to start, the power drive died a few years ago and it was beginning to make this awful grinding chunking noise.  I wasn’t really planning on replacing it yet.  The unusually warm spring gave us an early growth of grass so during the course of my many runs to the hardware store, I had a Red Ryder moment. Ok…back to work….

Most people dread painting because they don’t have the patience to pay attention to those minute details that become more noticeable later.  Things like filling holes, uneven patches, paint overlaps, shadows have an everlasting effect.  Since I was sidelined with a broken foot, I had the luxury of taking my time (most of it to Steph’s dismal!)  The entire room took roughly 30 hours for the painting part from preparation to finish.   Check back again soon for more on the adventures of the Spritzer Bedroom Renovations…..

As I was working my way through the second of three bedrooms, the master, I realized I hadn’t taken too many pictures of my efforts.  I decided to do this with the third bedroom.  This room used to be Danny’s room.  With Mike’s room the first to be done, he decided to move in there.  Now Danny being a teenager wasn’t too concerned about keeping the room well maintained after all…I mean, he is teenager after all!   And the saga of the Spritzer Bedroom Renovations continue…stay tuned for more!

In my last post, I mentioned that the living room, hallway and my office were done by outside “professional painters”.  Steph found them while watching the local news.  She figured if they were good enough to appear on tv, that had to be good enough to hire them.  They quoted her a “home show” special pricing.  Even though it was reasonable, it turned out to be a case of you get what you pay for.  And, I wasn’t too happy with some of their efforts….missed spots, overlaps, shadows and one particular spot that was too obvious and conspicuous.     As you can see, it doesn’t have to take a professional painter to do a professional job.  The entire re-patch and re-paint job took roughly the same amount of time the original effort took.  So if you are in the Western NY area looking for a painter, feel free to
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In the midst of everything, Steph decided she wanted the living room and hallway redone.  The living room is pretty large room and there were a lot of structural hairline cracks since the walls and ceiling are plaster.  The hallway includes the stairway that leads up stairs so that meant the ceiling was a challenge being at its highest point over the lowest point of the stairs. I probably would have gotten to it but not according to her schedule which was….yesterday.  So, she saw on the local magazine format morning show a guy talking about painting and his business.  Logically, if the business is good enough for tv it should  be good enough to hire.  They quoted a special home show price which was probably about 40% less than what one would pay for a good professional paint job. Oh and by the way, Steph decided that the office
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With our son’s wedding coming up at the end of June coupled with the fact that we hadn’t done anything to bedrooms since moving in back in 1996, we decided it was a good opportunity to all three bedrooms.  Given that Sam had a broken foot from the St. Patrick’s Day pub crawl, it was something that would keep him busy without miss the run, swim and bike training. We have three bedrooms upstairs.  The third bedroom being Mike’s old room was not too guest friendly so that was one objective and reason to do it.  The cat was another reason.  We cannot tell you what cat pee smells like but that was the main reason we decided to rip out the carpets.  What we didn’t realize was we were hiding beautiful wood floors. When we moved in, the floors were all marred and covered in paint.  Our reaction was
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