Vintage Asbestos Tile & Cutback Adhesive

Ohhhh man what a nightmare! One day I decided that I hated the heinous 1980's faux brick beige sheet linoleum that was on the floor in my kitchen. I went to a salvage store and I found some large 16X16 squares of vintage school floor tile that I thought would look groovy and much better than the nasty old stuff that was currently on the floor. I (for whatever reason) assumed that the sheet linoleum that was vinyl was the only thing adhered to the floor and that there was probably sub floor beneath it. Welll....yea, that was not the case at all.

My house was once my grandmothers house and she was a heavy smoker which was why I really wanted the linoleum gone. The vinyl layer was actually very easy to pry up because it had become quite brittle with age and nicotine permeation - it had after all been on the floor for probably 30 years. However, the vinyl was laid over the COOLEST 1950's vinyl that sadly was too damaged by the other vinyl adhesive to keep. This vinyl was gray speckled with gold which is very similar to the tile I found at the salvage yard but without the gold. This tile was also a vinyl, but it had a paper backing on it that was adhered to yet ANOTHER layer of flooring. Once I saw the paper backing I knew it had asbestos in it. What a lot of people do not know is that asbestos was put in just about everything because it was a great binding agent and it was fire retardant. Now we know its a cancer causing agent and you should wet it down and/or have it professionally removed because you can inhale the particles.

Well, I was about half way through  the removal of the first two layers of flooring before I thought to myself "hum, I should probably wear a mask". Anyway, with the mask now on I removed the rest of the two top layers of flooring. This is where the problems began. 

The first layer of flooring was really thick green marbled asbestos tile. This was adhered to the floor with this black, goopy, sticky tar that I found out is called Cutback and it was used in the 1930's to lay down asbestos tile. This stuff is almost impossible to remove. Luckily, the area in front of the sink and around where the appliances were the tile and cutback came up together relatively easy. The center of the floor was another story. The cutback was laid down about 1/4 of an inch thick. I read on another blog that a lady rented and used a wallpaper steamer to remove her asbestos tile and cutback, but knowing it would take a few weeks of intermittent work it did not seem practical to rent a steamer. So, my mother remembered that she had a heat gun at the house and we started melting the tile and the cutback to get it off the floor. 

If the floor had been sub floor I would have just said forget it and put another layer of sub floor over the mess and tiled over it with my new groovy tile...but...Under all that tile mess are hardwood floors that are the same as the rest of the house and they are in perfect condition. So, now I feel compelled to save the old hardwoods and refinish them, which means I need to get ALL the old tile up and get as much cutback off the floor as possible. I took some pictures that I will post later, but as of now we are just about done removing the old cutback....To be continued...

Studio Lighting

Last year for my birthday my boyfriend got me the BEST gift EVER - and by that I mean he really thought about this and how I would use it and it really changed how I do business. He got me a EZCube light kit. The kit had two different sizes of soft boxes, 3 studio lights, and accessories for photographing jewelry. With the soft boxes I am able to make small items look like gallery art and the lights can be used with or without the boxes to create professional looking photographs. 

Now, I have an extensive photography history dating back to high school, so I have/had an idea of what to do with lighting already. But the kit makes everything so easy anyone can do it. To illustrate the difference this is a picture taken in my office with sunlight passing through the curtains. Now, the curtain I have up casts a peach sheen into the room and no matter what setting I changed on my camera, it still picked it up. If there is no sun and I must use an overhead light, it will generally look "off" when photographing clothing.

This is a picture taken with all 3 studio lights set up. There is a halo light, a small light with diffuser, and a large light with a diffuser. If my office was wider, I would be able to put the lights in ideal areas - but with low ceilings and not a lot of room I was somewhat pleased with how these turned out. As you can see, the weird sheen from the curtain is avoided and you can see where the lights are positioned by the shadows on the wall. The studio lighting also picks up true colors MUCH better - especially noticeable in the pic of the kimono where it has a black background and multicolored neon flowers. BUT - I was not liking the shadows AT ALL. I did not like that is looked like "museum" lighting since such lighting would be more appropriate for a vase or lamp. So....onto the third lighting set up.

I removed the halo light since it was causing the gray cast in the upper left hand corner. I also lowered the two cube lights with the diffuser covers to the floor and pointed them upwards. I put "daylight" swirl bulbs in the ceiling light and turned that on - as well as removed the curtains completely from the windows on a sunny day.  As you can see now, all that light has allowed for a white background, solid colors, good contrast, saturation, and realistic in terms of actual colors.

I haven't used the jewelry props yet, but maybe in the next couple of weeks I will be able to show how that turns out :)

Garden Door

Last summer I picked up the coolest vintage door at a salvage yard for $10! It is aluminum with leaded glass at the top and a screen in the middle. It even has a letter door! Hopefully by this summer, my roses and clematis will have grown up the screen! It looks great flanked by my 1950's concrete pink flamingos and bright blue flower pots.

First Etsy Sale!

I am so excited that I made my first Etsy sale! I was really surprised at how many people looked at the item I sold because when I had it listed on Ebay, hardly anyone paid attention to it. Today I am going to list more similar items that were also "unsolds" on Ebay to see how they go!

More Web Adventures

Ok...so GoDaddy's web builder sucks. It is beyond too difficult to edit, and it also bogs down the net speed really badly. You must open at least 3 windows at a time then, half of the stuff you do then try to save will not actually save. Then, there is the unfortunate thing where you go into "preview" and accidentally X out the window losing all your work....yea I am working with Wix now since I wasted about 3 days with GoDaddy...