I got bored one day during quarantine and tore out the carpet in our family room. I had told Jesse, “I’m only gonna look”. Yeah right.
Our house had new carpet put on every floor except the main level in before we moved in. The room was not a grown up room. The kids love to hang out down there so we had gotten them some turquoise futons that they could fold down on the weekends. It's also where my decorations that I like but don't LOVE landed and I should mention that we ended up with a couple holes in the carpet as well courtesy of my dog, Marrok.
I can only assume that he sensed I hated the carpet and was doing me a favor when he "accidentally" ate it and that it had nothing to do with the fact that he was an old boy. He always had my back. And yes...I am going to take an opportunity to throw in a pic of him because he was the most handsome in all the land and who doesn't like dogs?
A while back, I tore up a corner to see what might lie beneath the carpet. I saw painted wood and thought it might be hardwood but, came to the conclusion that it wasn’t since I couldn’t see any slats and there was so much paint. Fast forward to quarantine, I'm bored out of my mind and knowing that the carpet needed to go because of the holes, I tried to convince Jesse that we should get rid of it. He wasn’t having it and of course it was for all of the logical reasons that rain on my parade. The biggest being that we didn’t have a way to get rid of the carpet yet. Booooo. The thing is, I don’t give up once I have an idea in my head.
I assumed when we did do the floor that it would be some type of Pergo flooring which we had experience with after our basement flooded the year before...also boo. I figured it was best to double check under the carpet again....just in case. I pulled a bigger corner and TA DAAAA!!!!! There was hardwood under there! I couldn’t just sit on a discovery like this so, screw being logical, the carpet had to go. Our 3 girls and I started moving furniture and pulling it up.
Lets talk about what kind of shape this floor was in. One side wasn't that bad, ugly, but not in bad shape. Another area had stains in the wood and you could tell that someone at some point decided they were going to sand the floors and gave up. From the scratches and gouges in the floor, it looked like an attempt with a hand held belt sander. There were some spots with larger than I'd like gaps....and then there was the glue! A half circle of linoleum once laid on top of that glue from what I could tell. To each his own I guess but to me it is a crime to do something like that to hardwood.
There was a moment of “Was this a good idea?” but I’m not really one to have much stop me once I get going. Having the kids help with projects is a blast. The girls were fabulous and dove right into sweeping, scraping and pulling staples. Jesse was on the "If I can't see it, it doesn't exist" plan. Not to worry, I made sure to visit him upstairs every now and again to show him pictures of what was going on and attempting to convince him it was going to be fine! I think part of it was to convince myself as well because I had no idea what I was doing. Pulling carpet up is one thing but I had never refinished floors. Last time I pulled carpet(also on a whim and pregnant), I got lucky with what was underneath.
I couldn't leave them as they were at this point and I'm not afraid of a little challenge so let the adventure begin! Jesse kindly dropped by Home Depot to get me an orbital floor sander since he had to go out anyway. I am not quite sure what transpired at the store but he came home with a floor buffer. Apparently Home Depot Dude thought a floor buffer was a better option for sanding floors than a floor sander and, having never done this before, the advice was taken. We learned quite quickly, it’s not a better option. You’re not going to sand away finish and paint and glue with a floor buffer so if you ever find yourself refinishing floors, get the sander. Let me share how we came to this conclusion.
First, it’s a floor buffer! Second, the sand paper options they do offer do not come close to having a low enough grit to make any difference in sanding through what we needed. But hey, that’s what we had so we gave it a shot! I am SO glad I didn’t take a turn first or I may not be writing this story today. Home Depot Dude had given zero instruction to Jesse on how to use that a-hole of a machine so it was left to experimentation. He pulled the operating handle and nothing...lowered the handle a bit more, pulled it, nothing. He messed with a bit and nothing worked and then his finger hit a little tiny button on the side while he pulled the handle and off it flew across the room landing one good blow into Jesse’s ribs on its way. We both looked at each other in disbelief and then laughed pretty hard...cause that shit was funny folks.
A few YouTube videos later, Jesse gave it another go and another. He had that beast pretty well tamed but it was a huge pain to operate so, it was time to take it back and get what was needed in the first place, a sander. Seeing as that we were needing to sand floors and all it made sense. Belt sanders are also an option but I'm afraid of them since you can only go in once direction. I did not want our floors to end up looking the same as whatever the previous person had done to them.
Right off the bat, the sander had much better options for paper. We got 24, 60, 80 and 120 grit. I had hoped for 40 as well but, they were out. All of the staples and nails needed to be pulled before sanding so I finished off the last few while Jesse gave the sander a test run. So much better, exactly what we needed. The orbital sander was easy to use, doesn't know how to fly and can be moved in any direction while sanding.
The most difficult part of this entire process came first, the damn plastic drop cloths that we used to block the doorways. In fact, I think this is where my new gray hairs came from that I spotted recently. I think I spent more time trying to keep those things up than anything else, not to mention the dogs plowing through them constantly. There were times I said "screw it" because I was sick of stopping every 2 seconds to put them back up. On my merry way I went sanding away. What a dumb idea because it left me with a huge mess to clean up. Sawdust really can get everywhere. I know now that if I am ever to refinish a floor again(my upstairs is also hardwood covered in carpet), I will be tacking those things up on the wall. Yes, it seems like such an obvious solution now but it did not occur to me in the slightest to do that at the time. Don't judge.
Let the sanding begin! I sanded and sanded and sanded. Then I sanded and sanded. Took some time to do a bit more sanding and then topped it off with some sanding.
I started with the 24 grit and worked my way up all the way to the 120. The 24 grit took the longest because that is what was getting through all the finish and stain down to the bare wood. We bought extra sand paper because we could return what we didn't use but we used it all. We not only had the finish to get through but had to sand paint and work on all of the gouges back in the corner.
Our hope was to sand the glue which worked ok but, you couldn't stay in one spot too long or else it would warm up and get sticky. I scraped it instead which was 4 hours of my life I'll never get back. I sprayed it with Goo Gone, let it sit and then away I went with my metal scraper. Since the wood then had a bunch of oil soaked into it and I needed to sand, I threw some sawdust on it to soak it back out which worked really well. I was due for a win after my defeat with the doorways.
I did a pass in each direction with each grit changing my paper to a fresh piece at the start of each pass in a new direction. I also vacuumed and swept in-between. The less dust on the floor, the better it will sand. I went vertically, horizontally and diagonally on each angle. Our floor wasn't perfectly level and I think doing the passes in all directions helped flatten out some of the spots and get spots that wouldn't have been hit had I just gone in the same direction over and over. Caution on sanding near tile on your fireplace or you might end up busting one off. Whoops. I had that sander for 3 days and was so excited once the time came to take that sucker back. However, even with the incredibly hard work it was taking, the mess it was making, I was still incredibly excited about the transformation in the room.
This is precisely why I like doing projects. It is hard work but once you're done, you get to look at it and know that you are the one that put in the effort and made it what it is.
With the floor sander gone and out of my life forever(for now anyway), it was time to start with the hand sander; getting the edges, corners and any spots on the floorboards that the floor sander couldn't get. Jesse and I each had a floor sander so we teamed up on this one. This is also when I filled in the gaps in the floor. I made my own wood filler with wood glue and sawdust. I did a fairly decent job scraping away the excess on top of the floor but once it dried I wish I had done better. I should have wiped them with a wet rag...but I didn't so once again, I sanded getting any left over residue where I had filled the gaps.
Then I had to do the stairs...ugh. You know the drill. Carpet gone, tack-strips up, staples out, sanding starts. Those stairs were a bit of a pain only because the paint that was on the edges did NOT want to come off even after I sprayed it with latex paint remover but we won in the end.
I feel like I should mention that Jesse's enthusiasm about this project really ramped up and he was now also very excited about our beautiful floors. Can you spot the missing tile?
I am a big fan of dark wood but I'll tell you, those floors with their natural color were absolutely gorgeous. I kept going back and forth on whether to stain them. Plus, they had some cool imperfections in them which I think add good character. I like imperfect and unique things. In the end we decided to stain since our main floor is darker and would meet the stairs, it made for a better transition.
I wanted to go dark. Darker than we had upstairs but Jesse wanted it to match so we figured we go down the middle. We had stain left from boxcar shelves we had done previously and loved the color so we tested it out on the stairs...it was DARK. It is the Varathan Premium Stine in "Kona". Part of me was like, "Great, I get to sand more because I just jacked up this stair.". I did another stair being very careful to put the stain on very lightly and wipe it off very quickly, much better! Next, we tried it on the floor and it was perfect.
Staining the floor was fairly quick and easy. We did strips with the direction of the floorboards about 2 ft wide. Jesse painted it on and after it sat for a minute, I wiped it off with a cotton cloth. It ended up turning out on the darker side and I could not have been more happy about it. Those imperfections in the wood I mentioned, gone. You couldn't see them at all. However, with how the stain took in some spots there was new character added to it. And thankfully, I did not have to sand and redo that stair.
Even though the floors in the family room are darker than our main floor, because of the dark spots in the lighter floors, it makes for an ok transition.
My dream of having a more adult looking family room was coming to life! We were getting so close to the finish line but the floors needed to have a finish put on them. Polyurethane and I are not friends so I wanted to find something different. Especially after I started reading that people will typically move out of their house for a few days because the fumes are so bad. No thank you! I try using eco-friendly products when I can. It's something I started researching a lot after my oldest was born and it changed the way we live.
I started researching and first found Waterlox which seemed like an awesome product, better than poly for sure but it was expensive and not sold in stores from what I could find. Then I came across using different oils on wood, specifically Tung oil which comes from pressing the oil out of the nuts/seeds of the Tung tree. Tung oil soaks into the wood and hardens to protect it from the inside out rather than just putting a layer on top of it. This allows you to still see the texture and beauty of the wood. It's not entirely eco-friendly but a much better option than poly. Tung oil does need a fresh coat every couple years or so but for me, that's fine and it's much easier to fix if you get a scratch. Sand the scratch a little and put some oil on it. Easy.
When I was looking online and seeing people use Tung oil, I didn't see a lot of what brand they were using. Off to Home Depot I went where I had seen Tung oil before. I bought a few cans, got in the car, took another peek at the back of the can and that's when I saw it, "NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FLOORS." I went back and forth on this a bit but guess what? I did it anyway. It says "NOT RECOMMENDED...", not "DO NOT USE...". I was terrified when I started my first coat wondering if I was about to ruin the floors I just worked so hard on.
Aside from needing a few days to harden after the last coat of Tung oil, it needs to sit about 24 hours in between coats. It takes 14-30 days to cure completely. This was worth the trade of not doing poly but that still doesn't make me patient. The can says to do 2-3 coats and from what I saw people doing floors said it's good to do up to 7 coats. The more coats you put on the shinier it will get. I did not want shiny floors and my furniture had also been sitting outside on my patio for God knows how long at this point so, I ended up doing 3.
To start, I did it the same as we did the stain. I went with the direction of the wood in 2 ft strips and just painted it on. I let it sit around 20 minutes and then wiped it off using an old t-shirt which would keep fuzz from sticking to the floor. I was scared at first to wipe it off too much because I thought I might be undoing what I had just done but then realized that buffing it out worked the best so there wasn't any left on it. The next day I did the same thing and then on my last coat on the 3rd day I did the whole floor at once. I put it on and let it sit for almost and hour then slipped and slid my way across the floors to wipe it all off. Jesse is lucky he has any t-shirts left, I appreciate his sacrifice.
Finally, beautiful dark wood floors.
Beautiful dark wood floors that show every speck of dust and dog hair. My Roomba Boomba has been busy ever since. It was known that this would come with the dark floors so I'm not too bitter about it and now that a rug is down there as well, it's not bad. All in all I am glad we went with the dark stain. The walls also got a fresh coat of paint and it was so gorgeous we ended up getting a new couch that we had our eyes on for about a year. The new couch is so comfy and giant that we all fit on, it really can be a family room.
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