Our Flooring--DIY

As a side note to the projects we carefully lined out in our new home, I really wanted to refinish the hardwood floors. After all, it wouldn't be that expensive because I was planning to do the work myself. I planned a full 3 days for the sawdust--which was precious time, as we only had 2 weeks for projects before we moved in.

Here's what I started with:

A dingy, somewhat scratched, worn to wood dark hardwood floor that was probably original with the house in 1983. Yes, we could have lived with the floor. But I knew that for resale purposes, we really needed to refinish this floor. And the sawdust wasn't a mess I wanted to have while our things were in the house. So as a first priority, and as a footnote to all of our other projects, I took on the hardwood floor. It was supposed to be a quick precursor so we could move on to more important things like getting the air vents cleaned, the carpets cleaned and new carpet installed.

It turned out to be more than a precursor. Turns out that refinishing a hardwood floor is its own main event.

 This is what the boards looked like after 16 hours of sanding with the first rental sander--a 12x18 rectangular sander that vibrated across the floor. I asked our handyman to come take a look at our progress, and he showed me what a floor should look like after it's sanded.

 See the raw wood his small sander found in less than 30 seconds? He encouraged me to return the rented sander, get my money back (I had just called to extend my contract another 24 hours since I had made such little progress!) and find another sander that worked. He left me with his small belt sander, but cautioned me that it was not the proper tool--it  would burn out and take hours and hours and make the floor uneven. 

So I hurried and researched my options. I returned the first sander and rented a drum sander. The rental guys were very hesitant to rent it to me--they said this machine was only for hard core jobs like decks, not the beautiful fine sanding of an interior floor.  But they looked up the recommendations and saw that with 100 grit sandpaper, the drum sander could do interior floors. I thought I was set, so I waited for Sam to unload the heavy sander from our Corolla, and we worked late into the night on the sanding.

The drum sander did fast work, but the bolt of the lever to lift the drum kept falling off. So I'd get to a place where I  needed to lift the sander up, and the bolt would be in my hand, leaving the sander grinding into my floor. From this, we had several divets that were deep and ugly.

The next morning we called another reliable source--our woodworking friend. He brought over another handful of small sanders, and spent 4 hours sanding around the perimeter of the room. He got about half way done, then had to leave. Sam and I picked up where he left off, returned the drum  sander, gave up the idea of putting on stain that night, and kept sanding with small sanders. We were a joke. We were on our hands and knees sanding with a 4 inch square sander, and the work was slow going. Poor David was staying up late with us night after night while we worked on this, and our family was reaching a limit of exhaustion.

On Monday morning, I tackled the sanding again--we thought we were almost done. I reflected on how many man hours we had already put into this floor and how we didn't want a sloppy job after so much work. So I started calling professionals to come look, and please give me a quote to just put on the final coat of varnish on the floor, after I was done sanding.

They came. They saw. They laughed.

Some told me to call again when I was ready. Some gave me quotes for just replacing the entire floor. Some told me they wouldn't put their name on our floor, and they didn't even offer a quote. I was more than a little discouraged. The only thing they had in common was that they all said I needed to get all the color out before I put any kind of finish on the floor.

So I stopped inviting the professionals in to look at my work, I got on my hands and knees and kept sanding.

 See all that color on the board? That's what I had to take out with a 4" sander. It took hours and hours.

 Here's a contrast of the boards I had finished and the boards I still needed to do.

After I got all the color out, I called a few more professionals. Now there was really too much work in it to turn back. With my cleaner sanding (but still lots of divets, left from the drum) they entertained my floor as a job they could do. In the end, we went with the guys who would own the whole floor. They came in, used their fancy schmancy sanders to even out my work, made my floor as smooth as glass (except some of the divets, that only my eye can notice) and made our floor absolutely gorgeous--natural finish with a satin sheen.

Total time it took them laboring over our 450 square foot floor was 7 hours. They saved me another couple weeks worth of work in their 7 hours of labor--and their product is really outstanding. As they packed up, I asked them what other jobs they do. They had quite the resume--the Governor's mansion, gymnasiums all over the state, performing halls, etc. And they still did my tiny little job and made it look like a masterpiece. Thank you Kotts Flooring!

 I decided that while I could figure out how to maintain a newly refinished floor in the living room, hallway, and even dining room--I did not want hardwood in the kitchen. So my (unfinished) work is in the kitchen and their gorgeous work is in the forefront of the picture, in our dining room. I absolutely love our "new" floor.

Isn't it gorgeous!?! I love the dark grain (naturally dark, not left over from the stain) that marbles throughout it.

Hey honey, remember that carpet remnant we bought that was too big to fit into our house? And remember how we kept getting it stuck in door jams and hallways, and it turned in to a laugh or cry moment? And it was late at night, we were both overly exhausted, and we wondered if we got in over our heads again? I'm so glad we laughed.

Stay tuned for how it goes in laying our own carpet. (In just the 2 smallest bedrooms--the rest of it is hired out already, I promise.)