Paul (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} fremantlebiz) wrote,@ 2007-11-22 08:09:00 |
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Floor refurbishment in time for a new settee
When my wife gets a bee in her bonnet it's time to stand back. About three weeks ago we ordered an extra settee for our family lounge - leather in a reddish colour called cherry. We picked the contemporary design from a large range on display at Gascoignes, a reputable local furniture showroom next to JB Hi Fi in Myaree. The cost was about $800, which seemed reasonable considering it was in leather. They don't sell synthetics. We made our minds up as soon as we saw it. We thought we were going to bring it home then, but were politely informed that what we saw on the floor was display stock only. We would have to wait for delivery. Bummer!
The company which has been in business for over thirty years used to make all it's settees in Perth, but that was in the olden days. A few years back they moved their factory offshore to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Now they bring all their staff back here in shipping containers as fast as the Malaysian elves can churn it it out. Fast in our case meant about two months. We've been promised our new settee will be here in the week prior to Christmas.
I knew what was going to happen next. My wife started mumbling about painting inside our house. This is always a sign of difficult times ahead. First there was the trim on the interior doors, they became a maroon red - federation red I think. That was okay because the bluish colour she'd experimented with last year wasn't very successful. The federation red sets off quite nicely with the existing colour scheme.
Then she decided that our front door needed doing in the same colour. It was originally in it's natural stained timber coated with clear one-pot Estapol, but now it's in Dulux federation red high gloss, and I think it also looks much better for the change. A couple of carved-wood heads of fierce looking Aztec warriors have been remounted on either side of the door knocker to make the Mormon and Jehova's Witness people think twice before trying to convert us.
But these things were the easy bits. Two months is a long time to wait for a settee and so my wife started looking at our lounge room floor. We ripped out all our dust mite and flea infested carpets fifteen or more years ago and coated the jarrah timber floors with a two-pot Estapol. I wouldn't recommend this product. It wasn't as tough as it was supposed to be, and worse, the manufacturers reckoned it should be stripped right back to bare timber because it couldn't be recoated. Well that was a load of rubbish. It can.
A couple of years ago we discovered a product called tung oil, which is not an oil at all. It's a hard wearing one-pot varnish-type product designed for coating on floors. I wrote about our earlier experiments with this product on 6 March 2005.
Last week my wife did some experiments on the old two-pot Estapol in our lounge with the same can of tung oil remaining from 2005. It adhered well, and looked good too. Three days ago the furniture was removed from our lounge and dining rooms - this meant our TV room was only accessible via an exterior door in our back garden - very inconvenient for keeping up with the latest political party-ads for the coming election of Mr Rudd to PM.
My wife has since applied three coats of tung oil, allowing 24 hours between them. The jarrah floors now look terrific. The new settee will sure to be be very pleased when it arrives. All the old furniture will go back into the rooms today. Hopefully my wife will then take some time to sit down and relax for a while, but somehow I have my doubts.
Now check out the fabulous leather range from Perth's Gascoigne Furniture Company by clicking here.
© MMVII Paul R. Weaver.
About the writer
Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write a couple of million words.
When my wife gets a bee in her bonnet it's time to stand back. About three weeks ago we ordered an extra settee for our family lounge - leather in a reddish colour called cherry. We picked the contemporary design from a large range on display at Gascoignes, a reputable local furniture showroom next to JB Hi Fi in Myaree. The cost was about $800, which seemed reasonable considering it was in leather. They don't sell synthetics. We made our minds up as soon as we saw it. We thought we were going to bring it home then, but were politely informed that what we saw on the floor was display stock only. We would have to wait for delivery. Bummer!
The company which has been in business for over thirty years used to make all it's settees in Perth, but that was in the olden days. A few years back they moved their factory offshore to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Now they bring all their staff back here in shipping containers as fast as the Malaysian elves can churn it it out. Fast in our case meant about two months. We've been promised our new settee will be here in the week prior to Christmas.
I knew what was going to happen next. My wife started mumbling about painting inside our house. This is always a sign of difficult times ahead. First there was the trim on the interior doors, they became a maroon red - federation red I think. That was okay because the bluish colour she'd experimented with last year wasn't very successful. The federation red sets off quite nicely with the existing colour scheme.
Then she decided that our front door needed doing in the same colour. It was originally in it's natural stained timber coated with clear one-pot Estapol, but now it's in Dulux federation red high gloss, and I think it also looks much better for the change. A couple of carved-wood heads of fierce looking Aztec warriors have been remounted on either side of the door knocker to make the Mormon and Jehova's Witness people think twice before trying to convert us.
But these things were the easy bits. Two months is a long time to wait for a settee and so my wife started looking at our lounge room floor. We ripped out all our dust mite and flea infested carpets fifteen or more years ago and coated the jarrah timber floors with a two-pot Estapol. I wouldn't recommend this product. It wasn't as tough as it was supposed to be, and worse, the manufacturers reckoned it should be stripped right back to bare timber because it couldn't be recoated. Well that was a load of rubbish. It can.
A couple of years ago we discovered a product called tung oil, which is not an oil at all. It's a hard wearing one-pot varnish-type product designed for coating on floors. I wrote about our earlier experiments with this product on 6 March 2005.
Last week my wife did some experiments on the old two-pot Estapol in our lounge with the same can of tung oil remaining from 2005. It adhered well, and looked good too. Three days ago the furniture was removed from our lounge and dining rooms - this meant our TV room was only accessible via an exterior door in our back garden - very inconvenient for keeping up with the latest political party-ads for the coming election of Mr Rudd to PM.
My wife has since applied three coats of tung oil, allowing 24 hours between them. The jarrah floors now look terrific. The new settee will sure to be be very pleased when it arrives. All the old furniture will go back into the rooms today. Hopefully my wife will then take some time to sit down and relax for a while, but somehow I have my doubts.
Now check out the fabulous leather range from Perth's Gascoigne Furniture Company by clicking here.
© MMVII Paul R. Weaver.
About the writer
Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write a couple of million words.
