Partyraum Part 5

Now the floor is starting to look a bit better. The self levelling compound did its job and the surface is now smooth. It isn't completely level across the whole area, but it is acceptable and if I put tiles in at some stage, it should be easy to do. There are a couple of places where I think the compound might not last all that long (probably the areas where I filled with cement powder) but it should be easy enough to sand off and redo - if I have to. Once the compound was poured, it was spread with the same kind of trowel you use for laying tiles (the one with the teeth). You can walk on it after two hours - though mine was thick in places and I left it a couple of days before walking on it.

Once it was dry, I had to decide on how to treat it so that oil and grease and other kinds of dirt wouldn't stain it permanently. Still thinking that I might eventually tile it, I decided that a floor paint is probably the best way of doing it. If I do decide to tile it, I can just sand it, treat it with Tiefengrund (Polybond) and then the tile adhesive will hold. If I were to use some other kind of finish, like the acryl stuff, I'd have to do considerably more sanding if I were to tile it later. Anyway, Sven told me there was a shop in Landshut that was closing and he managed to procure two buckets of heating room paint for €1 a litre. Heating room paint is impenetrable for heating oil and is a requirement if you have a room with oil tanks. It just means, if the oil leaks, it won't get into the ground water. You actually have to paint three times for a heating room. As we'll have pellets, it doesn't matter. I used it because it was cheap. The colour was described as 'brick red' but I think it is more terracotta than anything else. I painted it twice and now it looks like the picture. It is a durable, non-slip finish. Dust etc still 'sticks' to it though - i.e. if there is fine, damp dust, like on the underside of a show, it will mark and you won't be able to get rid of it fully with a normal brush - you'd have to wash the floor. If I had applied the acryl finish, dust would have no chance and a brush would clean everything. However, tiling would be an issue.

Now that I have a floor, I set up my table saw. Next project is to make a workbench with a clamp on it. It is way too cumbersome to do anything without one. In the picture above you can see the timber I'm going to use to finish the edge of the gallery - i.e. the top of the wall. The carpenters had to take off the 'cornice' I had on it (only a skirting board upside down) to get the stairs in. I got the timber from Stuckenberger. I'll probably have to use the router to get a bit of a nice bead on the underside of it - but that's also a job I'd rather do when I have a workbench.