Hi All - thanks so much for the great discussion and tips. I have been growing a pink currant but don't know the name - it is thriving here in Colorado (I keep getting new plants sprouting everywhere near the original). The birds don't bother the currants at all here. They eat everything else I grow! I wanted to add a black currant and just called Lucile at Whitman and ordered - what a nice lady! She had the Ben Lomand black and the Russe (sp?) which is not listed in her catalog but she is very happy with that variety so I am trying both.

We have color! I am in LOVE with the Pallmann's Magic Oil finish we put down. Because I was trying to avoid a strong odor during the refinishing since we would be staying in the house during the process (sleeping downstairs), I decided to go with a colored Pallmann's Magic Oil rather than staining using Minwax or DuraSeal first then using the clear Pallmann's. To find a color I liked, I ordered several samples of Pallmann's from the distributor that is closest to me, in Dallas, and the samples are called "pucks." I got black, dark brown, and red brown. Straight out of the can, the colors weren't what I was looking for, but when I started mixing them, I found a great combo. I just took a plastic solo cup and a plastic teaspoon and mixed in various ratios until I got what I wanted. First was 3 spoonfuls of dark-brown and 1 of black, but that was too dark, so I added 2 more spoonfuls of dark brown (for a 5:1 ratio) and that was perfect. I was also mindful of how much total finish I needed to buy (6 liters for my project) so tried to mix in ratios that would minimize waste, and 5:1 was perfect for that. We mixed all six of the Part A containers (colored oil) in a 5 gallon bucket and stirred thoroughly, then used a small measuring container (from the paint section of HD) to measure out a small amount of the colored oil to mix with the Part B (accelerant) which is what makes it harden to a very durable finish. I think the colored Pallmann's has a different ratio of Part A to Part B than the clear, but just follow the directions on the box. Ours was 4:1, I think, so I would fill the container up 16 ounces with color, then top off to 20 ounces with the accelerant, stir with a stir stick, then trowel apply per the directions and video UFloor (the distributor/mfr.) has on YouTube. To prep, we screened the entire floor upstairs at 100 screen (we'd sanded it previously with a sanding sequence of 60, 80, 120 but had a week's worth of foot traffic and moving the last bits of furniture out so wanted to make sure the wood fibers were all the same to accept the stain evenly. Perhaps overcautious, I don't know). Screening is MUCH harder than using the vibrating square buff sander - it took lots of muscle to figure out how to control the buffer. There were a few times initially where I didn't think we were going to be able to do it - mostly when the buffer was going airborne like an ice skater doing a triple Lutz. Eventually got it under control, but managed to leave lots of marks on our freshly painted walls from the buffer handle pushing us around. Got some touch up to do. It looks so easy on YouTube but it was HARD! Then, we swept up tons of sawdust. Then, we shopvacced all the dust we could, carefully carrying around our shop vac canister so it wouldn't leave wheel marks on the floor's fibers. (Again, overcautious much?) We tacked the floor with old towels misted with paint thinner. This was stinky but my husband did it while I was at Home Depot exchanging our buffer for a new one - the first one's wheel was messed up and it was really annoying to work with. All the prep work takes forever, but I figured it was better to do it now than spend two months installing the floors and messing them up in the final stretch. Before sanding and screening, we also had taped over all the light switches, electrical outlets, covered vents and air returns - and turned off the heat - taped plastic over the ceiling fans and lights, removed all the blinds, etc, and then removed all that stuff so that when we were doing the clean up, all the sawdust would be on the floor so we could get it up before we applied the finish. OK, still with me? We are back to applying the finish. We started with the side rooms so that if we had to stop, we could end along a doorway with a full plank of wood. The first room we trowel applied - I used the trowel (which was a 10" stainless steel drywall trowel that I just took a piece of sandpaper and rounded the edges on) for the majority of the floor and my husband took a piece of the buffer pad and did the edges - like cutting in when you are painting a room. We got about 1/3 through the room and needed to stop and buff (there is a time limit on how long the product is workable, we set our phone's alarm and stopped to buff whenever it was time). The first bit was frantic as I was really worried about hurrying and the time and everything, but I calmed down soon enough and figured out this is a marathon, not a sprint. We followed the buffing sequence the instructions specified and didn't have much problem, The first buff is really "grippy" and you need to use some muscle to control the buffer or it will throw you around. The final buffs with the white pads were pretty easy, and I did those to give my husband a break. Per the tip from the Pallmann rep, we applied two coats back-to-back before moving on to the next room. Trowel application: The second room, we thought we'd try the other application method, the buffer method instead of hand-troweling. Big mistake! Maybe if we were more experienced with the buffer we could have done better, but as it was, that buffer through us both around like a rodeo bull. Grabbing the liquid oil made it really careen around, no matter how carefully or lightly we dipped into the oil pool. I had the honor of putting the first hole in the drywall - at which point DH thought he'd better take over. He was doing better than me at first, but then the buffer got the best of him and he put two more holes in the drywall in the same room! We decided to finish that room using the buffer method but to go back to troweling after that. There is no real difference in how the finished product looks, and it really wasn't faster to do the buffer with the way it was flinging us around. The only thing was my wrist was practically crippled by the end of the project, as we did almost 1500 sf in a 10 or 12 hour marathon. I was switching from left to right hand, and DH even had to take a turn troweling, but I've had to wear my wrist brace all week to give my poor arm a chance to rest. This is reaching the length of a novel, so I will just post some more pictures of the final product. We still need to do the stairs (at 2:30am we called it quits because we needed to get up for work in four hours) and baseboards and shoe molding, so these aren't the final final product, but we are getting close. It's been an adventure! We did have a few problem areas that we need to address, I will come back and post about that soon. Buffer application: Back to troweling:

These are 2.5 inches thick. I had not even thought about how that extra inch impacts plumbing. Good think to think about! Thanks. I know they will be heavier on the cabinets than 1.5 inches thick, but considering that a chunky granite slab was on them prior to this renovation, I am assuming they can hold the weight. Then again, I know what happens when one assumes! The cost of the bowling alley seems pretty great. About $900 for it cut to size and sanded and that covers all of our counter top space. That seems like a bargain compared to prices I have seen from fancy butcher block designers. I will see how it compares to a quote form the woodworker who is coming tomorrow.

Milgard sent this pic. It is hinged on the top, it goes on a push out window and you have to swing it in to get to the latch and push the window open. Some companies won't make roto operators in small sizes. If I use push outs, the screens will hit things like the mattress and the kitchen faucet. In a little sleeping loft like this you'd have to push the mattress over, lie on the floor, open the screen toward your face or over your head and stick your arm out the window to operate the window! I can't reach to do that above the kitchen sink unless I jump on the counter, which I can do but.... In a regular or large house there would be room but it wouldn't matter as all the windows could be larger anyway. I can't have sliders in the awning locations as there needs to be some awnings so they can be opened in rain and wind as the house has no eves as the width required for eves won't be allowed on the road. Tiny houses have much tighter parameters. This is basically a stick built recreational vehicle and it needs to conform to RV codes. My compromise to avoid vinyl and push outs/hinged screens, appears to be getting the clad wood as those appear to be the only ones that anyone will make in all the sizes and styles called for if I put a casement in the slider location. Sierra Pacific uses a less fuming water based wood treatment but they don't want to make the casement in the size I need because it is a few inches short of egress code, even though I can fit through it easily. Loewen and possibly Marvin will make them but their wood treatment is solvent based. I didn't design this house but it is well designed and the operating types and sizes are proper for each location. Being a tiny house and already framed there is really not much room to change anything even if I could reframe it. All I can do is put a casement in the slider location, awning won't work because it has to be egress upstairs. If I was starting over I would design according to the sizes/types available in the least toxic window. I was lucky enough to find this custom tiny house builder who agreed to sub non toxic insulation, cabinets, paint, flooring, MC instead of Romex, etc., others weren't willing to customize anything. If I hadn't been made environmentally ill and chemically sensitive from a house with toxic mold, I wouldn't have to be so careful as to toxic materials but I was and the only way to detox from this is to avoid exposure to more chemicals and toxin exposure so as to allow my detox system to catch up and clear out accumulated toxins and that won't happen if one is accumulating more as would happen if living in an off-gassing house with a toxic encephalopathy headache daily. I am by far not alone with this issue as it is becoming more common everyday as buildings become older and moldy and materials and products become more toxic. I know of many, thousands, who are now having to build non toxic.