Holes

So last night I took a look at the floor, and the paint has brought out every crack and dimple. I thought I was resigned to this, but it turns out I wasn’t quite ready to be done.  (Current Score: Floor: 1, Me: 1).

I had the bright idea to try to patch them up... I sanded down some of the holes with 80 grit and tried to fill them with Bondo. Most of them turned out ok, I still missed a bunch because the Bondo dried so fast and I didn’t want to mix up more. After the last Bondoing, I had forgotten to clean my putty knife, so it went on a bit gloopier this time. I think it may have been a terrible idea.

I think NOW I’m resigned to the ones that are left. They won’t matter too much with the pattern, and I kinda like the beat up look. But when I do other rooms, I’m going to be using more of the troweled wood filler and Bondoing like the wind. The smell is so bad that two of the cats are covering their noses.

I let the Bondo dry for a few hours, then went to sand it down. I used the electric sander, which turned out to be a horrible idea. The paint has been drying for a little less than 24 hours, but hasn’t fully cured yet. Sanding it led to the creation of tiny roly-poly bugs of latex, which proceeded to clog the sander. Between this and the extra gloopy-boondo,  I wound up sanding a lot of them using a sanding block, which faired a little better.

 

Once most of the holes were done, I went over the whole thing with a sanding block and 220 grit. Conventional wisdom is that you’re supposed to sand between coats so that any wood fibers that come to the surface get sanded down to smooth out your final finish.  I’m not sure if I believe this or if it’s just Sandpaper Company Propaganda, and with all the remaining dimples and bumps it probably won’t matter, but I’m trying it anyway.

Two shop-vac’ings later and a wipedown and there are still roly-poly bugs though, hopefully I can get them up with a broom and do a second coat later today.

Update:  Thanks to the combined efforts of my trusty broom Champ and Stanley the Shop-vac, I was able to perform a roly-poly extermination. Second coat completed! I might have to do three to cover my bad patching though, I’ll find out tomorrow. Once the final coat is done, I’ll have to wait three days for it to cure before I can put down the tape to tape out the design.  I also managed to step in the wet paint today.  I’m not especially surprised – it’s more of a shock that I didn’t do it yesterday.