18 March 2013
Refinishing the floors took much longer than anticipated. Jeff woke up early, rented  an orbital sander from our local Home Depot and got to it. 
The kitchen floors are pine (a softwood) so they were incredibly easy to sand. Most of the top coat and stain came off with the orbital sander and the smaller areas we done by hand. 

The living/dining area was not as easy. In fact, it was horrible. First off all the floors in that area are oak, which is much harder than the pine and takes longer to sand (even with a more coarse sandpaper). That wouldn't have been so bad if we hadn't begun to see streaks in the wood as we began to sand. We came to the conclusion that whoever refinished the floors before us did so with a drum sander, against the grain of the wood. This resulted in parts of the wood being lower than other areas, leaving the stain trapped in those spots.
We had already come this far and were determined to make it work. So we continued well into the night and the next night.
Copper wanted her own dusk mask. 
After 3 days we had sanded all that we could.
 We decided to not stain the floors for a more natural look so all that was left was to clean and seal. We wiped down the floors with a damp cloth and they were ready to seal.
Sealing was surprisingly easy as well and Jeff had no problem doing all 3 coats on his own (with 24 hours drying time in between of course.)

Finally after 3 full days of work and 2 extra evenings we were done.
We are by no means experts in this area and we learned a lot along the way but if you want your hardwood floors refinished and are up for a challenge, we say go for it!

As you can see, I've started patching the walls. On to the next project, my favourite, painting!


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Welcome to our little blog. Here you'll find our adventures as we take a DIY approach to our 1903 Little Red Brick Home.

Jeff and Shannon

Jeff and Shannon
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