Get to work!

I need help, and you're not cutting it.

You're falling down on the job!


You're supposed to take care of things outside, but it's still raining. Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain. I know plants need water, but this is absurd.

I really can't take it much longer. I've taken off yesterday and today to work in the yard, but that has quickly turned into working on the house. It's spring cleaning time, so we've been getting everything spic and span.

However, all this moisture is causing a whole other problem. See, the dog likes his bed, but the fleecy lining gets hot in this weather, so I put a nice cool sheet over it. I went to change the sheet and noticed that there was a bunch of white stuff underneath it. At first I thought it was disintegrated litter (Simon thinks the litter box is a snack bar), but on closer inspection, it's another casualty of the weather:


All the tiny scratches from cat and dog nails created little doors to the shellac underneath; the moist air that gets trapped under the dog bed, plus any moisture that soaks through when he comes out of the rain has caused the shellac to discolor. And I can't just wipe it with alcohol. I tried that-- it's UNDER the poly. I scratched a little off, and luckily, I think it's the clear dewaxed layer that we applied to help the poly adhere that's hazed, so hopefully, I can work on these few boards individually. I plan on rubbing with sandpaper or steel wool to remove the poly and perhaps wipe with alcohol. Then put another layer of dewaxed clear shellac and re-poly.

Anyone have other suggestions? I'm going to try spot treating first and then re-polying the entire board, but I'll redo the whole thing if necessary. Thanks to the blog, we have a very detailed account of what we did with the finish.

I need to re-poly a few boards in the kitchen, as well. They were particularly dry and I think they soaked up a lot of the finish. At any rate, once these things are done, I think I may take up a suggestion left many moons ago to wax the floor. I should be able to just spot wax for a few years if I do that, right? I don't have to wax the entire house every year, I hope... And what do you clean waxed floors with? I don't know. It will make refinishing that much more difficult down the line since we'd have to remove all the wax before screening or sanding, but it might protect the floors underneath, meaning we won't have to refinish so soon...?

It's just such a bummer.