Refinishing the Hardwood Floors

The biggest project we accomplished before moving into our new home was refinishing the hardwood floors throughout the house. Despite the condition of the floors, this feature was one that I loved the most about the house. I love the look and feel of wood floors!

These were in pretty bad shape though. Apparently the previous owner had let the dogs/cats have free reign of the house while he was away – for weeks at a time. GROSS. And SAD! So there were lots of stains on the floors.

Joe had helped his dad to refinish wood floors a couple of years before we did ours so he had some experience. While I was away on a work trip Joe and Tim rented a belt sander from the hardware store and went to town sanding the floors down.  

• With the belt sander you go in the direction of the wood grain, and it’s important to leave some room near the edges so you don’t rough up the baseboards too much.
• Around the perimeter of the room we used a circular sander to carefully sand the edges of the floors to match the rest.
• Once you have the flooring sanded down you’ll need to spend some time getting up all of the dust and wiping them down.
• We used the shop-vac to get up the dust and then followed up with a damp mop several times to get all of the dust up.
• You’ll also want to wipe down all of the walls and trim to clean up any dust from sanding.
• Next you’ll choose the stain. We opted for a darker color. An added bonus to the dark color is that it does a good job of hiding imperfections in the wood. We used MinWax.
• To apply the stain we used rags and wiped it in even coats in the direction of the wood grain.
• Our job took 2 coats of stain.
• Once the stain was dried we went back to areas that looked like they needed more and applied it there.
• We let the stain sit for 24-48 hours and then applied the polyurethane coating to the top. To apply the poly use a sponge mop and work yourself out of the room – also going in the direction of the wood grain.
• We let the floors sit up for 2 days prior to moving anything into the house, and even then we walked around in socks for a week.
• The smell of the poly lasted FOREVER. I felt like all of our clothing reeked of it for weeks! J So lesson learned, bag up your clothing and belongings prior to do this type of project!

Before Pictures:

Here is the flooring before we sanded it.

Here is the staircase before

Here is the staircase after stain and before painting the wood.

Here is the staircase complete with trim and transitions painted white!

Finished flooring in our sitting area. Furniture circa 2007. :)

Living room with finished floors - and our lovely hand me down furniture. 

Curb Appeal for Vernie

Take a good look at this front stoop. It’s falling off.

In order to make our front entrance safer and more appealing the entire front walk and stoop were replaced. Joe and I were so happy with how this turned out and I think our neighbors were even more excited! They’d been looking at this eyesore – along with overgrown grass for too long! We’re fortunate to have family in the concrete business. :)



The walk/stoop right after it was poured – you can also see the new fascia board for the gutters that would be installed soon after.

 
Here are some photos of the new walk from the summer of 2008 – after Joe pulled away all of the railroad ties and we replaced with some nice plantings!
 

Paint!!

The walls in this house STUNK. And they were ALL WHITE


To give the house a fresh look and make our paint job stick Joe recommended that we sand all of the walls and then prime and paint. My husband is a meticulous painter. When you paint with Joe there are no shortcuts allowed. Joe did most of the sanding and I helped with the parts I could reach. I underestimated the value of sanding the walls. Once we sanded we were able to fix the imperfections – hammering nails back in, patching holes, etc. It makes a world of difference to start with a clean and even slate!


Once the walls were sanded everything was wiped down to get rid of the dust. Make sure to get some big soft sponges and dampen them to wipe everything down. You'll want to do it more than once.


Ceilings and closets – my wonderful father in law, Tim, sprayed all of the ceilings and closets for us!


Next it was time for the primer. KILLZ was our best friend – despite how toxic it is, it sealed up the walls and helped to get rid of the stench in the house. We were lucky it was Fall - we could leave the windows open!


After primer we taped the trim and got the rollers ready for COLOR! I had lots of fun picking out paint for our house. We purchased all of the paint from Sherwin Williams in Mission and were very happy with the quality.


Things I learned from Joe about painting:
- Cut in the corners and edges with a wide brush first.
- Roll from the top down in even lines, getting as close as you can to the ceiling w/o touching it.
- Watch for drips! (He hates drips!)


Here’s where I’ll leave you with before and after shots of the color transformations in each room – except for the master bedroom – that’s a different post where we’ll learn all about painting with RED.


Living Room/Hallway with seller’s items – and a preview of the grungy hardwoods:

Living Room & Hallways with Sherwin Williams – Macadamia:

Bedroom #1 with the seller's stuff:

 

Bedroom 1 with Sherwin Williams - Friendly Yellow:

(That's my little brother, William, painting the storage nook for me!)

Bedroom #2 Before – with seller’s stuff.

Bedroom 2 with Sherwin Williams – Lily Pad (discontinued I think…)