World O' Carpet

I picture someone and something like this in our house...

Like any good story, we should start at the beginning. Once upon a time, 1919 to be exact, our house had beautiful floors. The planks were thin and delicate, the wood fine, varied, and unique. Then, I'm guessing around 1960, someone decided that wood was passe and glued down rugs or carpet to said beautiful floor. Again, someone, acting out of good intention I'm sure, in the 70's decided to staple down green shag - yes we've found the evidence. This cycle continued until 2012 and until the house had no hardwood floor visible.

Stories like this make me sad. First of all, because I am allergic to everything - dust, mold, cats, dogs, shrimp, horses, pollen... you get the idea. I take daily allergy pills (bought in the 300 pill economy bottles), but even then I'm still attacked, which brings on my asthma. I should live in a bubble, I know. The point being, carpet makes me sick - literally.

Secondly, stories like this also make me sad because I like hardwood. Zach likes I like how easy it is to clean. I like how easy it is to switch it up put a new trendy rug on it. I like the array of colors in natural wood. I like the stories that the dings, scratches, and imperfections tell. I like the warmth and richness it brings to a room. I like that it is classic and never looks outdated. I like that it doesn't make me sick.

When we bought our house, the kind realtor had torn up all the old carpet except for on the landing and "the blue room" (i.e. the big guest room). The potential for hardwood floors throughout sold me. We Googled incessantly, questioned the people at Ace, and watched almost every YouTube floor refinishing video available. Finally, we decided we could totally refinish the floors - all 1300 square feet - with no experience.

Before moving in, we figured we could get it all done in about two weeks. That was stupid. We were tired and busy. It's May (301 days past closing - I have a count-up widget on my phone, sue me) and we have the tiniest bedroom and the craft room done. Either we suck at this, or it was much harder than we thought. Probably a combination of both.

Sleeping Porch

Little Guestroom

Anyways, we decided to start up in the little guest room and sleeping porch. We figured it would be better to make learning mistakes - can you tell I'm a teacher? - up there than to do it downstairs where everyone would see it. In case you forgot or don't want to click back, here are the rooms before we started.

 Burlap Toms! Christmas
present from the hubs.

Zach started by renting a big floor sander and going at it. He also used a combination of different handheld sanders. This is what it looked like when it was finished... with a Tom's shot for good measure.

I felt like a ballerina on the sanded floor - I may have even danced a little. It was so smooth and natural. We decided not to stain them. We liked the way the natural wood grain looked and we didn't want to add that extra step. We also didn't want the stain to bring out any more imperfections. Our floors are 100 years old and have nails, screws, dents, separation, and more. I like the story they tell and their imperfections, but I don't want to bring your eye to them first.

Oh, and we painted after we sanded. This was dumb because I'm not good at painting slowly and carefully. So then we re-sanded some parts. Live and learn. But I love that color - perfectly grey without being blue! Yesss.

Then, we cleaned everything. The dust is insidious, evil and everywhere. Did I mention I have bad allergies? This made it worse. Once it was all clean and an ungodly hour of the early morning, we decided to begin putting on the poly. We used Minwax Satin. I had heard that using a higher gloss can make imperfections stand out more. They also said that scratches tend to be more visible with higher gloss. We're happy with our choice.

Seriously look at that paint color and trim... <3 

The poly totally brings out the color of the wood. It was incredible... and smelly. Keep other doors closed to keep the smell out as much as possible. We let it air out with the windows open too. Again, wasn't great on the allergies.

Zach let the first coat dry for about 12 hours. He used a high numbered sand paper (I can't remember what) to buff it down and applied the 2nd coat. Since this is a room that we really don't use, we let it sit for a few days and a weekend after applying it to really cure it. Okay, lets be honest there is still only a rug and some bags in the room because I can't decide on furniture.

I spy a sewing machine, some freaky long toes, morning sunshine, and a bunch of
Walmart bags filled with supplies for my craft room!

There are definitely some whoopsies on the floor - a few spots where the poly puddled or dripped - but unless you've spent a long time staring at these floors you probably wouldn't notice. The not shiny spot is actually a just dusty footprint... the dust continues permeate as we work on other rooms.

We're pretty happy with it and feel that it will make an great future nursery. We'll do another post when we're finished. Have any hardwood floor refinishing stories or tips? Share them with me!