Homeowner Task #1: Refinishing Hardwood Floors

by Erin

 

I think this picture sums up Max and I's existence for the past month (wow, we closed on our house one month ago today).  We are living in a mixture of sawdust, plaster dust, and whatever the hell the contractors are doing in the bathroom (hey, who needs to shower, right?!?!!!!).  After taking ownership of our new abode, Max and I went immediately to work on the floors (see our previous carpet removal post).  It was three weeks of after work sanding and three full weekends of sanding and sanding preparation (i.e. removing staples from the floor, etc)

After we completed four floors in our house I asked Max if he would recommend doing this to a friend.  His response, "hell no."  In some ways I agree, but I must say that I had quite sense of accomplishment after that final coat of poly went down on our floors.  I would just tell a friend that they better need to know what they are getting into by being prepared to take it slow, to know that you are going to have a serious mess on your hands, and to be sure and have somebody on hand that can give you advice.  Thankfully our lord and savior, Tony, my school's building engineer, answered frustrated text messages to help us through any and all problems we had.  He also didn't seem surprised when I told him it took me three days to sand the first floor, so I felt like I wasn't a complete idiot, which was how I spent my first weekend of sanding.  You also need to be prepared to find butt prints all over your house, from weary sanders that need a place to lean. 

Anyway, here is what we did. 

The office, sanded and ready for polyurethane.

The office is the first room we went to work on.  It was Columbus day weekend, so I had three days sand this, and it took all three of them to get it to this state.

Coated floors

 

Next I moved on to the living room and dining room.  Now, we didn't have to do this one, since it had most likely been recently done, but it looked dingy and we weren't a fan of the bright white color.

Living room dining room in progress.

This floor was super strange.  If you didn't move the sander along it quickly enough it would create kind of a paste out of the sawdust, then grind it into the floor, which required more sanding to get it off.  It took some serious finesse.  

Here is me staining the floor with a roller.  It was recommended that we apply the stain with a rag, but you know, we were tired.

The floor looks lovely and shiny now!

While I was working in here, Max took on the bear of a room, the "stair room."  The carpet in this room had been secured down with glue.  Ugh!

Max removes toxic glue.  Safety first!

Poor Max spent several days chipping away at the glue with paint remover.  Thankfully Max seems to enjoy slow, tedious project.  Strange.

Grimy edges

Max handling grimy edges!

Ready for poly!

Do you see the x's in the floor?  I'm pretty sure Indiana Jones is going to come over and find something underneath this one!

The final floor we tackled was the upstairs bedroom.  It proved to be the most uneven, and it had a nice coat of carpet padding under it.  Lovely.

Streaky mess

 All of the floors resembled this after using the drum sander, but this one took the longest to fix. 

Closets were always such a bummer.  We would feel like, we almost had it and then. . . the closet!  Another mess.

So I guess I haven't taken a final picture of this room, but I didn't want to wait any longer to post on the floors and it doesn't take a whole lot to get distracted in this house, so I'll put it up later.