Finished Floors!

This blog post is a bit delayed, but we finally have some new floors to rave about! Years after moving - far more than expected - we finally ditched the old teal green carpeting and now have some wonderful stained floors in the home.

With the help of our friends at Green Home Experts, we tried several different color samples of a product called Rubio Monocoat. This is a single-application floor stain and finish that does a fantastic job of making the floors in our house pop like never before. Best of all, the product doesn't have any noxious off-gassing like traditional polyurethane, and it has no harmful chemicals.

We went with Rubio's color "Black." I know what you're thinking, "Who wants black floors?!?" but the reality is this doesn't paint the entire floor black, it ends up staining the wood grain black and the surface of the wood a rich dark color. Just see the closeup on Rubio's web site to see what I'm talking about.

The oil was applied by hand along the room edge and then with a floor buffer throughout the rest of the floor to give a nice finish. Working with the product is a little different as you need to work in an area within 15 minutes so the oil doesn't dry too much. But there is just one application of the oil that is needed.
Usually there are no repeat visits, but we learned a lesson on this. You see, the paint turned out so nice in the Living Room that we decided to the Dining room too after the floors were done. Learn your lesson here from our mistake: No matter what you do and how tempted you are, wait until EVERYTHING else is done before finishing floors.

Because Rubio Monocoat is a natural oil it takes a while to dry. It needs 36 hours of drytime to be walkable, and three weeks to fully cure and dry out. The painting and sanding required in the dining room ended up getting dust into the crevices of the not-quite-dried floors, resulting in a hazy finish. But a few drops of oil on a floor buffer corrected the issue. The bad part is it required another 36 dry time and cure time.

Overall though we are quite happy with the way things turned out. In fact the color matched the floor trim very well, and made the built-in trim and mantel appear a bit too muted, so I grabbed an old cloth and some linseed oil and cleaned up the existing wood too so everything now has a nice rich luster. I also debated stripping the old paint off the fireplace, but time is a luxury right now, so we put a coat of a nice rich gray over the painfully boring white, which blends in nicely with the new green-blue walls and dark floors.

And, until some other thing strikes our fancy, I think we can call this room "done!" For the time being.

Paint can be Non-toxic

We have some very good news to share - our home will soon be a little fuller this summer as we welcome a newborn to the family. So at Humphrey House we've begun what will soon become a flurry of activity preparing for baby.

One of the first things to tackle was the room we'll be using as the nursery, which is one of the two bedrooms in our converted attic. This former guest bedroom needs a makeover - and finished off (windows were never stained or trimmed!). Nothing motivates you to finish a punchlist quite like a deadline. I had to first actually finish mudding and taping the drywall around the windows (which had never been done and for three years has been craftily covered by curtains).

Once the walls were ready, we naturally wanted to paint and found that we are definitely trying to create a safe healthy room, so when evaluating options, we went beyond "typical" green paints that focus on low emitting levels of VOC's (volatile organic compounds). These VOCs can be very harmful to human health. We have been using Low-VOC paints before for our kitchen remodel, but with a newborn that takes many more breaths than an adult, we wanted something as safe as possible. The fact is, most low-VOC paints still are toxic. So we decided to go with a paint that not only has low VOC emissions, but also is made from non-toxic materials, called AFM Safecoat - which also does not have any formaldehyde. It was $10 more for a gallon than regular paint (we needed just one gallon). Is it worth an extra ten bucks to know the air is free from formaldehyde and other toxins, less likely to cause chemical sensitivities and asthma in our baby? Yes. I see this decision as very cheap insurance.


We went with a nice bluish-purple for the walls that Jen likes to call a "shade of periwinkle". I like the color selection because this particular color looks different in daylight vs artificial light so gives some variety to the room. In terms of installation, the AFM Safecoat paint does roll on the walls a bit differently - a bit more loosely and not as firm. So it take a bit more effort to apply. It also was pretty thin on the first coat, but incredibly deep after two coats. Jen was quite happy to see the "old" (a mere 4 years) yellow walls go away.

It's worth noting that just because it is non-toxic low-emitting paint doesn't mean it is low emitting before it is dry. There is an odor that is less offensive than regular paint, but still noticeable for a few days as the paint cures. But now it's virtually undetectable.

Next, we'll have to tackle the windows in this room which have been unstained / unpainted for nearly four years(!) and then trimmed out. Then we'll be ready for some nursery furniture! But of course the impending arrival of the baby means its time to polish off several other items on the wishlist punch list, so there will be more to follow.