Monday, June 03, 2013

Experimenting with stone floor sealing

Long time no blog! I'm now living in my dream house in the bush, with visiting cattle (a lot), birds of all descriptions and interesting flora. For various reasons (time constraints, mostly), the house is not 100% completed and all the painting and floor finishing remain to be done. Of course, it's far more difficult once you are already living in a one-room, loft-style place, but it will have to be done, somehow.

My most immediate need is to seal the natural stone floor so that stains won't permeate and spoil it. I was thinking of a clear stone varnish, but then thought I'd like something more natural, and easier to apply (again, considering we are already living in the house). I came across various options that fit my requirements, among which liquid black soap; boiled linseed oil; a 80-90% to 10-20% linseed oil + turpentine mix; and olive oil; to which I added, tentatively, coconut oil (well, why not?).

This begs for experimentation. I've therefore collected 5 stones remaining from the stone laying work and traced a line in the middle, to make the "before" and "after" very visible. I only have coconut and olive oil at home today, so these are what I started with. I'll get linseed oil and black soap tomorrow, hopefully.

I will document the progress of this multiple experiment here.

To be continued, then!

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