The Hardwood Floor Saga Begins

Guys we are refinishing our floors!!! It’s started, it’s really happening. We’ve only had a few snags so far, thus the reason I am calling this the “floor saga.” Our floors are not all one type of hardwood. It makes it a little tricky when it comes to staining, because we have fir and oak. They are basically on different planets when it comes to color. Fir is really red/orange and a very soft wood. Oak is well, yellow/white…

(mid sanding… round 2)

Now I am planning on writing a comprehensive post about our experience, but this is really just to stop in and give you an update. We’ve sanded the floors…. twice… if you caught my instagram stories, then you know of our woes.

We started by moving everything out on Saturday. And I mean all of it! It’s tucked in fin’s room, and she’s relocated to the boys room. Our entry is a gong show, and it’s Tuesday and I really can’t wait to have our kitchen and dining room back… or at the very least get the fridge back in the kitchen, and use the stove again!! How many rotisserie chickens and bags of nacho chips can one family eat?

( this is the room as we were sanding- with a test spot of color)

We started sanding the floors down Saturday night. We had aspirations of finishing, but due to some false assurance from the er… worker at the rental store, the sandpaper was just not a rough enough grit to strip the finish. So Matt went and picked up grittier paper first thing in the am- and we sanded after he took the bigs to church. Theo has been sick since Thursday, so thankfully he got a really good nap in.

We sanded the afternoon and evening away. 36-60-80-120 grit… and were SO EXCITED when it was time to put the stain on. We put a conditioner on the entire floor for even stain application, and I went and put the baby to sleep. Once the kids were in bed we started staining and no word of a lie, the floor did not absorb hardly a drop of stain. Like nada. It jus sat on top. I put on a few strokes with the applicator and immediately felt worried.

When Matt walked in, he said “woah- I think you’re using way to much” to which I replied… ” no. it’s just sitting on top of the wood. It’s not soaking in at all!”

So we panicked a bit. We went back and forth as to whether we should keep going or stop. Were we crazy? We just sanded the floors for 10 hours, and it was like they were made of plastic. Nothing was soaking in!! So we swallowed our disappointment, moved onto the fir section and pretty much hated the results. It was definitely not what we were going for.

After wiping the “excess” there was hardly any stain remaining. We laughed, assured one another we weren’t crazy and ultimately ate some ice cream and went to bed. We made up our minds to regroup in the morning.

In the morning the oak didn’t look like we had done much of anything. We wondered if we would end up with painted floors, but decided that either way we needed to strip off the oil. So- I started sanding with the paper we had left. Matt had to go in to work- and later came home withe more, grittier paper.

So what happened? Essentially the conditioner “sealed” the wood, which repelled the stain. We sanded down all of the oak floors again, this time starting with a 20 grit paper and working our way up. It was pretty much a project disaster. The only up side is that we chaged our mind on the final color, and I think we are going to be happier.

We decided to do the entire floor in Minwax “driftwood.” It makes the floors look related, especially to our new hardwoods. It’s less red, and more grey/brown. The bottom right is the driftwood, next to a piece of our hardwood. The other two colors are special walnut and provincial.

Yes this is a HUGE project- but definitely not bigger than building a house.. haha. For a few hundred dollars and some elbow grease our floors will be splinter free, not brand new, but in much better shape and more within the aesthetic of our home. This is also the first major project for renovating the original house, which is very exciting!

The final coat of stain went on today! Next up poly…. I am so close to making over the dining area, I can almost taste it. Which is great news because we need to start up with homeschooling soon!

-Miss Ash