The day arrived for the Dinesen Douglas delivery from Denmark. The boards arrived on huge pallets, which would have taken hours to unload by hand. Ali was quickly sent off to get a tele-lifter to get the crates out of the truck.
We unwrapped them straight off the truck. So full of character. Beautiful.
Within an hour and a half of arriving on site the floor was already being laid. Andrew reported that it was the best floor that he had ever put down. The planks were perfect and went down very quickly.
We had a four day hiatus before it was sanded in preparation for finishing.
I had convinced Andrew that he and I would be able to do the finishing ourselves. He would do the sanding and I would do the applying of products and polishing of the floor. I had spent hours pouring over the Dinesen post installation booklet and watching the Dinesen videos. First job was to apply the lye solution. This lightens the planks and prevents the colour deepening over time. Using the provided roller, I applied the lye solution and already we were in unknown territory as it didn't behave like in the video. We were finishing the floor on a hot summer evening, and who knows what difference that made. The lye was absorbed by the planks very quickly. I was left wondering whether I should go over it all again...
In the morning we could see that the planks had been lightened by the lye. The instructions said that we needed to lightly sand the planks before applying the oil. We were really unsure how much to sand as there was a cloudy white layer on the top of the planks and we could either leave it mostly there or sand a bit more and let the grain come up. It was our bad luck that the morning we were doing this the Dinesen office was closed for annual holiday (they had been brilliant about talking me through the process the previous week), so we had to just decide for ourselves. We were applying a white oil next so we were worried that if we left too much pigment on the boards then the floor would be really white and the grain obscured.
Then came the white oil application, saturating the floor with the oil twice in quick succession and then polishing the excess oil away.
No photos of this part of the job as it was extremely time pressured and busy. Applying the fluids was simple but we quickly realised that I was not strong enough to operate the floor polishing machine- an enormous brute that had a mind of it's own. With the oil on the floor it was like a skating rink and even Andrew struggled to control it. But eventually he wrestled it into submission and I became a builders mate, constantly changing the floor cloths. If you decide to do a similar thing my tip is buy a LOT of floor cloths. I bought 50, thinking it would loads more than I would need and I'd be using them for the next 5 years. I could have got 100. An hour or so later we were admiring the floor. The grain was now being fully expressed and it was a gorgeously rich colour. The oil seemed to have dissolved any lye pigment and had brought out the colour of the floor. In retrospect we wondered whether we should have not sanded as much after the lye coat, but seeing as we have nothing to compare it too we're none the wiser!
After 48 hours we applied the second, single, coat of white oil and that has given the floor a subtly lightened effect.
I love it! And I loved being involved with finishing it! It feels like it's ours now and I know it's story. Things have been incredibly stressful recently (it's money/mortgage related - I haven't been able to write about it as it's been too much like an open wound, there will be a post soon) so this process of getting closer to the final finishes and creating our family home has been so positive and energising.
It really is a beautiful floor!
We needed to decide what floor we were going to be putting in our living areas on the upper floor. It was always going to be a wooden floor so really the next thing was to decide whether to install Engineered or Solid-Wood boards.
I spent a number of weeks of driving all over the place, checking out what was available and what was affordable and in the end we made our choice...
Dinesen, Dinesen, Dinesen!
Dinesen floors have entered my consciousness via the vast amount of magazines I have read over the last few years. Utterly gorgeous. Something that I thought was unaffordable and way out of reach. Under Charlie's direction we asked for the catalogue and price list and discovered that if we chose their 'Natural Douglas Fir' product in random length (2-5m), 200mm wide boards, then the price was achievable. This was wider and longer than most engineered products I was looking at.
About a month ago now (I'm so behind with my blogging!) I, with my two youngest, drove the 1.5hrs to Oxfordshire. We emerged from the deep and thick fog of Gloucestershire into a glorious sunny spring day. After months of anticipation and waiting, we started the internal design work. The babes were happily deposited with their Grandmother, for a day in the garden (how handy that she lives in the same village as Charlie!(more).
We had just a few hours to blast through a massive amount of design. We did the 1st draft electrical layout and lighting design. We discussed the materials we would use for all the internal joinery and the palette in general. We discussed the possible flooring choices for the upper floor. We designed the staircase (which has become a library - it's gorgeous). We did some playing with the kitchen design. We started on the bathroom designs. We talked about the sliding doors and how they will look and work.
A day of lightening fast design choices left me feeling pretty punch drunk and exhausted but also very, very excited. The living space that we will inhabit is really starting to come to life and become real, and that is an amazing thing! Of course, nothing is final yet and there are a million more design decisions to come. Once you have some concrete ideas to work on though, it is possible to think more carefully about how the spaces will be used, and work on refinements in the design.
I have to say that I am growing in confidence about design as this process goes on. It was fairly overwhelming to think about before- how do you begin? With a blank slate there is a lot of pressure! I wasn't sure that I knew what we wanted aesthetically, but I did know that we are strongly opinionated on a practical level of how design has to be useful not just beautiful. However, I've discovered that I do know what I like, it's just that I might not know what is possible...
Of course I have Charlie and everyone else at CLD to hold my hand and Charlie is very, very good at design - so I'm being mentored and guided in this process.
I can't explain my style in words, and Pinterest has been an amazing tool, I never fail to find inspiration. If you look at my boards there are a diverse range of styles but I've found that if I just pin what I like and find interesting, eventually a theme emerges which helps crystallize what I am most interested in. On my flooring board I repeatedly 'pin' hexagon tiles, parquet flooring and pale wide wood floors, so that really helped me to clarify what I wanted.
Follow future simple passive's board Flooring on Pinterest.
Like everyone else there are lots of things I admire and like but not all of them are going to make it into this house. So I've realised that I am starting to create some rules.
1. Do I get excited about it...
I need to have a visceral reaction. If it's just OK, then it's not the one! It's so easy when, for example, you are in a lighting department to just find the one that you like best, or hate least, if you are me. But that's not good enough, the few choices I have made so far have taught me that when I see the right thing I know it - i get really excited. I just have to be patient...
2. Creativity using low cost items
I, like everyone else, lust after those big ticket items. For me it is the PH Artichoke pendant lamp in brushed copper, by Louis Poulsen (in fact Danish lighting design in general rings all my bells). But at £6,500 it's not going to happen! I want to try to use my (and everyone elses!) creativity and not cash to make a beautiful home.
3. Limited palette of materials
After months of looking at Pinterest and subscribing to Remodelista (which is amazing), I've started to come to some understanding about "design", or at least design that I like (i don't claim to be an expert). The most relevant at the moment is keeping your palette of colours and materials limited and repeated throughout. So we have decided on pale wood, concrete, brushed stainless steel and birch ply joinery - oooohhhh!
4. Be brave
I worry that the house will feel like someone else's, a bit too grown up, and a bit too safe and boring. So, I want to be playful and brave. I think I would probably prefer regretting going a bit too far than not going far enough.
It's very easy to put pressure on yourself to get it right, after all it all costs money. I've lost count of the number of people who have told me that we will make mistakes. That's fine, but I'm going to do my damnedest to minimise those errors! Does that make me a control freak? According to Charlie, I've got control issues...I think I'm just thorough!
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