Refinishing Old Wood Floors

Our last project before move in was the floors, which we saved for last. For us, they were the crowning jewel and our ticket to moving in. 

Our floors were an old fir - they are quite old and fabulous, some lengths of wood run about 15 feet (today the average length is 2-3ft). The floors were in pretty good condition to start, other than the minor patches that were needed, the gouges we made during the demo and the fact the color wasn't our style, we may not have touched them. But the logistics of refinishing floors after you move in just doesn't work. So while we were comfortably still bunking with our parents we decided to get the job done.

We were very tempted to get them professionally done. A neighbor mentioned the beauty of a swedish finish, and we were drooling. But the price tag was out of reach so we crammed like it was finals week by watching countless YouTube videos. 

I think the hardest part of it all was patching in where there were holes. We had to go to salvage yards to get replacements (we got ours from Earthwise). Then there was a lot of chiseling (and a little bit of blood...). 

There was a weird, very noticeable, piece of plywood in the middle of the dining and living room. We think a chimney used to be there. We decided to patch it with old fir and stagger the wood boards so the square wouldn't be so obvious. It's not really a place a rug can go over to hide, I was really worried that it would stick out like sore thumb.

We had to lose our fireplace because the chimney was unstable, there was a huge gaping hole in our house including a few feet of floor space. 

You've probably noticed that the woods are different colors, and that is okay. Once we sanded everything down it all looked the same. We did find that some of our patch pieces came from high traffic zones, which meant we had to sand a little more to get everything level. 

We had to sand everything three times with different grits 36, 60 and 80. First with a drum sander, then around the edges with an edge sander. It was a great leg work.

Here's the old floors right up against the pure, sanded wood. 

We agonized over if we wanted the floors dark or light. I was initially all "the darker the better," but Billy liked the airiness the light color created. Enter our floor pinterest board. Whenever I got stuck on a design question my response would always be, "Let me pinterest it". It ended up getting us both confused because everything on pinterest looks beautiful whether the floor be light or dark. You know what we decided?

Clear coat, with no stain. We really liked the Early American and Provincial above, but we saw our sanded floor and were like "this is so awesome, why change it?" Why indeed. We also read a few articles that warned against staining when doing the job DIY. Stain has the opportunity to sink into little crevices and make mistakes more noticeable. So it sealed the deal. Speaking of sealing. You can't just put a coat of poly on the wood and call it good, you have to seal it first. Check out Billy sealing the floors in this vine video. We ended up using Bonaseal and doing three top coats of Bona Mega. When we first put on the sealer it emphasized the red in the wood, which is not what I wanted. But as it dried it turned into a rich honey, which I adore. 

This is after the second coat of poly, before we screened it and put on the top coat. 

Here's the floor after Screening. Screening removes inconsistencies and assures proper adhesion of the top coat. After buffing we wiped the floors down really well so no dust or particles remained. Below is the finished product!

pst... can you see our patch job? 

TaDa! All finished. You can see a few lines in it, that's from a gauge left by the wheelbarrow. We didn't want to sand down any further, and it seems like it just bruised the floor. We'll just call it character.

Here's our DIY Cost Breakdown:
  •   Wood for patching: $50
  •   Drum Sander Rental: $100
  •   Edge Sander Rental: $46
  •   Bona Sealer: $120
  •   Bona Finish: $350
  •   Sanding Pads: $100
  •   Buffer Rental: $40
  •   Time spent: 24 work hours

Move-in Special

Above you'll see some of our midway progress before paint, floor refinishing and molding went up. 

Eleven long months ago we announced we were taking the plunge into home ownership, we found the perfect little fixer upper in May and finally got everything squared away to purchased it in late September. It's been a long and windy road and now we finally have a move in date! And it's this weekend! We spent this past (beautiful) week sanding, tiling and finishing up small projects. There is still a ton of projects left, but the upstairs is to a point that we can live in it without going crazy. We are so excited to finally enjoy all our hard work. I'm looking forward to showing everyone the before and afters, for me it will be the icing on the cake.

Budget Lighting for the Glam and Girly

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 

As I mentioned before, we are still running like maniacs trying to get this house done and um, move in. But the very exciting part is that I actually get to start buying stuff to decorate. Yay. First up is lighting fixtures since the electrician has to install them. Since renovations are never cheap or on budget (we are crazy broke right now) the internet has been my best friend when scouting cheap fixtures. Here are a few of my budget favorites! 

I'm back! House progress

Okay, it's been awhile. And it's time for some major catchup. Like the fact that our house is almost done. It's been super crazy, super exciting, and yes, super stressful. Things have been moving lighting fast, which means decisions have to be made lighting fast. Here's a quick snapshot of where we are.

Kitchen:

•  We've decided on an Ikea kitchen, it's layout and everything that goes inside it - we bought it all on Tuesday and trucked it home.
•  Kitchen tile (we decided to do a wood-looking tile and heated floors)
•  Style of backsplash (my favorite, subway tile)

Bathroom:
•  Bathroom floor tile (white hexagon, how I love thy)
•  Shower tile (subway tile, yet again)

House Walls:
If any of you are thinking about drywalling, I hope you have a lot of time and patience because while it's not extraordinarily hard, it takes forever. I'm so thankful we don't have a huge house. We ended up hanging all our drywall and doing the first and second coats of mud. Our wonderful contractor then came in (fixed what we messed up) and did a beautiful third coat. We're so happy that we won't have to texture the walls. Check out my vine of Billy taping our entryway. 

Windows: 

The basement and bedrooms got all new double paned windows! The basement windows were quite the headache to install (we had to deal with fitting them to concrete) but the bedrooms it was a breeze.

Stairwell:

I've convinced Billy that a pantry is needed. We live in a small house and storage will become increasingly needed. This however might have to wait until after we move in.

Today:
Right now I'm contemplating paint colors and light fixtures. Our budget is near depleted so I've been hunting in second hand building supply and thrift stores in the hopes I'll score big!

I plan to blog more soon. And can't wait to share pictures with everyone! 

Cabin Cozy at Mt. Rainier

This past weekend we were able to break away from the daily grind to visit Mt. Rainer. It's amazing that driving just over an hour can get you to such beautiful scenes. We did a short day trip up to Paradise on Saturday - the weather was perfect; it was so sunny, but the snow was deep. It was my first time sledding since I was a wee one, and I can't fathom why we don't do it more often. It was also so fun to reconnect with college friends that live just out of reach. We're looking forward to making it an annual (maybe bi annual!) affair.