The first project - Refinishing the floors

The Killer Old Carpet

March 2009 - As soon as we arrived at the house on the afternoon of closing with the keys in hand, we immediately started working. On the first day, we cut and ripped out all of the carpet throughout the house. Along with that came clouds of dirt and dust that had accumulated for forty plus years. Unbeknowst to us, the carpet was a much more powerful foe and apparently objected to being ripped out.  It was actually so strong, that it got Monica sick and she ended up in the emergency room the next day. She recovered quickly, but from then on we made sure to wear our stylish Darth Vader full-face respirators.   Nevertheless, the carpet lost that battle in the back of the garbage truck.

The Dining Room Floor - Before

Under the carpets were solid hardwood oak floors. Unfortunately, they had seen better days and had bizzare patterns left in the wood (we never figured out why), so we knew we had to sand and refinish them. Before that could start, we had to pull thousands of carpet staples out of the hardwood throughout the house. That process took well over a week even with multiple people helping. Each day after working a full day at the office, we would head over to the house and work on removing staples into the wee hours.  I also spent many nights contorted on the staircase, sanding the risers and treads by hand.  Thank God for the power of OCD ! 

The Living Room With Giant Sander - Before

Then one Friday in March, it came time to start the serious sanding. We had less than two weeks left before we had to move in, so we had to start refinishing the floors because the stain and polyurethane had to cure for at least a week before furniture could be put on it. So we rented a huge commercial sander from Home Depot and started work. We were both sleep deprived, so we stopped the very loud machine at about 10:00 PM on Friday night - also so our neighbors wouldn't call the law down on us. The next morning we were at Home Depot at 6:30 AM to pick up more supplies for the sander and then got to work. We kept sanding all day, some with the machine and some with a hand sander on our hands and knees.

The Living Room After Sanding

We returned the rented machine at about 6:00 PM, but we had to go back and keep working. At this point, we were literally dragging our feet we were so beat.  But every surface in the house was covered with fine saw dust, so we had to clean everything - that process took until about 11:00 PM that night. Because we were on such a tight timeline, we had to start staining the floors immediately. We worked on staining throughout the entire night - hands shaking from coffee and Red Bull - and finished as I stained us out of the front door at 5:30 AM the next morning. 23 hours of non-stop work on a house we didn't even live in yet!

That week we started applying the three coats of sealer. Monica picked out a low VOC organic product called Polywhey. It's actually a polyurethane type sealer, but it's made out of the byproducts of Vermont cheddar cheese. Yes, cheese.  My brother has since threatened to rub crackers on our floor to see if it tastes good (I have tried and it does not). Due to the March weather, the poly took longer to dry than normal, so we ended up having to move in before the floors had cured. That resulted in our downstairs furniture having to sit on the front porch covered in plastic for a week or so. I'm sure our new neighbors appreciated that redneck look.  All we needed was a Chevy on blocks in the yard and we'd have been perfect.

The Finished Product - Now With Extra Cheese Flavor!

Eventually we were able to enjoy the fruits of our labor (it was one of the most exhausting projects we have done) with the end result of the finished floors. But just as our luck would have it, we talked to a floor finishing company at an Old Home Show a week later and found out they could have done it professionally for about $100 more than we spent on our own materials and supplies. I almost stepped out into traffic after hearing that.  Lesson learned - never refinish hardwood floors ourselves again.