Here’s Steve’s handy dandy Mirka Ceros 5” sander which he let me use to polish the edges of the tongue & groove floor boards.
Covid 19 hit and our finish carpentry schedule flew out the window. To make up for lost time/reduced labor on site, we ordered floorboards and trim from Canadian Bavarian. Canadian Bavarian has a paint room where they applied paint to interior and exterior trim, but their equipment could not handle oiling the tongue in groove linear footage we’d be using for flooring and ceilings. David Scott (architect) had the bright idea to send this material from Chemainus to Comox (a distance of 146 kilometers) where his contact Steve Roscoe runs The Woodland Flooring Company and Raincoast Alternatives, the exclusive importer for Saicos - a vegetable oil stain that architects prize - and it is on this basis David knows Steve.
I love field trips and factory tours, so I asked Steve if he would let me come help out when it came time for our boards to “get the treatment”. The first day, I spent four happy hours, sander in hand, smoothing the edges of the planks so that they would most comfortably fit snugly. It was pelting rain outside - temptations to wander were absent. The next morning, I observed the oiling machine and took excessive pride in “fixing” the machine that was refusing to deliver oil onto the roller. I will love my beautiful floors even more as a result of this experience. Thank you Steve, Josh, Jim, Nick and Gracia for a wonderful welcome and great learning experience!
Don and I have sworn off polyurethane floor finishes. We do not like their artificial plastic sheen. At our apartment in Chicago we “cerused” the floors with a blue wax that evoked Lake Michigan on a summer afternoon. In Cooperstown our floors were comb painted - a decorative treatment. We’ve patched and painted beat up old floors.
Steve deep-sixed polyurethane decades ago for a very serious reason. As a finish carpenter, he used to apply a lot of it. Then he and his co-workers developed asthma. Seeking a remedy for the ailment, a naturopath did a test which revealed monoethyldipropyleneglycol (think antifreeze) in his blood. The pursuit of non-toxic floor treatments, which led him to a German company making a product called Osmo, then to a spin-off enterprise, the makers of Saicos. Steve’s SAICOS-applying machine was the first of its kind in Canada developed by an Italian rep. The staining machine is a marvelous Rube Goldberg invention. A blue roller deposits the stain “goop” onto the floor board. The board proceeds along a bed of rollers to meet a series of brushes - akin to giant shoe polishers whose height can be adjusted by old-fashioned cranks. The oiled & polished board enters a box with a UV light which “cures” the stain on the wood. Each and every board is inspected as it comes out of the UV box for uniformness of stain. Any splinters or imperfections are marked to be bundled separately from flawless boards. Let me tell you that the boards emerge beautifully silky warm and smelling sublime. Two coats of Saicos will be applied before the material is sent down to us in Victoria. They stain gradually darkens over time. Sensational!
This material came from Canadian Bavarian, but Steve has lumber of his own - including old growth windfall, beaver-kill, bridge timber salvage fir, as well as red alder. In fact his business began using local red alder - a deciduous hardwood that grow fast, is a super nitrogen fixer that grows to maturity in twenty five years. I learned from Steve that alder and maple are pioneer species that make way for the Douglas fir to thrive and push through. Without alder you have no old growth forest. Steve has had his fair share of interesting projects. He harvested the wood from the windfall in Stanley Park (though it took years to secure the wood in hand). His end matched, kiln dried yellow cedar made its way into the Frank Gehry designed Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA. He supplied 20,000 board feet of FSC zero VOC, formaldehyde free, Douglas fir for George Lucas’ house. He has a stash of old growth fir 1 by 4 crown molding up in the rafters of the workshop - in case you should need it.
Our paint is similarly non toxic & eco friendly - we’re using Farrow & Ball for all interior painted walls, trim and floors. Pictures to follow once the installation in underway.
SAICOS is made from carnuba, candelaria, thistle, sunflower and soybean oils. More on the virtues of oiled floors- Think NO VOC’s!