Floors Part 3... ...Finally

Sorry about the lag. Between the move, a visit from my mother in law and my daughter coming down with Coxsackie virus, life has been a mess here.

We are moved in now so needless to say the floors are done. I can not say I am completely happy with my job. Is it an improvement? Yes. Is it the best job I've done? No. Frankly, this might be my worst. The floors look a lot better than the stained mess I inherited but now that the floors are finished, you can easily see the divits caused by the drum sander. These only occur in Sophie's room and the hall. I think that the hall ones are not mine though - I believe these are from the previous-flooring done a few years ago.

I am more upset about the poly job. The floor looks like a Don Ho video. I can live with that though. My first coat went well but my second coat, applied the day before our move, was rushed and I now have a couple areas where there is puddling. In our bedroom it is in the center of the room. Great, because we can always throw a rug over it. In Sophie's room, it is right under her window. Not only will we not be putting a rug in this area but it gets a lot of light - highlighting the poor workmanship.

All in all, there are two lessons to be learned. If you must use a drum sander and have no experience with one, go back over the area with the buff sander to help erase your marks. Second lesson: take your time with each coat of poly you apply and make sure you have good lighting to check your work.

-CP

Floors Part 2

I hoped that this weekend would mark the final chapter of the floor-refinishing project but unfortunate circumstances (explained in the next entry) left me with a lot of work this weekend and I still am not finished with the floors.

I made a lot of headway though, with mixed results. I finished sanding the floors on Saturday. No matter how much I sand the master bedroom, I can’t get rid of all of the staining (from pets, adhesive, and other crap under the previous carpet). I guess we will have to live with it – or buy a larger area rug.

I picked a “red oak” stain for the floors, hoping that it would darken the floors to a color approaching the original finish. I had also hoped it would disguise some of the staining in our bedroom. I started applying it in an area where it would not be seen – Sophie’s closet. Holy shit was that dark!!! Thank God I started in a closet. I wanted a color slightly darker than the current living and dining room but not this! I made a trip back to Home Depot to look at the stains again. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a stain that quite fit. I instead went for a more golden color called “Fruitwood”.

I have a dilemma now – I really didn’t plan on taking an extra day for more staining. The floors look nice but are still not quite as dark as I wanted. I may put on one more coat of stain in the hopes of getting the color a little deeper. Perhaps I’ll play with this tonight – in our closet - and see what the results are and decide from there.

Hopefully everything will be sufficiently dry tomorrow morning so I can put on the first coat of polyurethane.

Stay tuned for part 3…

Floors Part 1

They really should outlaw the use of carpeting for people that have perfectly good hardwood floors. The health hazards of all of this stuff growing and festering underneath our feet has got to be bad.

I tackled, I mean I tried to tackle, the floor refinishing this weekend. After removing layers of dirt and other - hmmm, I don't know what to call it - hairy stuff seems a good description, I spent a couple of days pulling up MANY nails and staples. I got to actual sanding on Sunday and made pretty good progress, until I hit the second bedroom.

The floor finish was incredibly hard and gummed up all of the sand paper. I think it was original shellac - which is probably why I thought it was such a beautiful finish.

I started the work with a square buff sander and only completed the master bedroom. I have worked with these many times and have never had any problems. This time I give up, I have lost patience and will go back tonight and get a belt sander to finish the second bedroom. The first three pics are of the unsuccessful endeavor in that room.

The second set of pics shows a more successful attempt in the master bedroom. The second photo depicts the unique hay-like padding that was matted with a unique mixture of dog urine and finish to the wood floor.

Luckily, most of this came up with an application of diluted Simple Green - that stuff is magic. It also got rid of most of the pet staining. I will follow up with photos of the remaining work towards the end of the week - when I hope to be finished.

-CP