Boy, it’s been an eventful last few days. Amanda and I spent the weekend — and then some, as we finished at 11pm last night — refinishing my floors. They look great now (I’ll try and get pics up semi-soon), but boy were they a lot of work.
We even went so far as to make things harder on ourselves. At first, we were just going to do the main living area and the attached hallway, but at the last minute we decided to tear the carpet out of the then-office, now-dining room and do that room as well. And that made things significantly more difficult, because where the living room carpet had been stapled to the floor, this stuff had been ~glued~ down with something nasty and gunky and black, and all that had to come up too. So we spent a good ten or so hours sanding the floor down, alternating between the rented floor sander and my random orbital for the many, many places the bigger sander couldn’t reach..
After the sanding, we covered parts of the floor in wood bleach (oxalic acid) to lighten their color a bit (and it did, although the areas are still a bit darker than the original wood), let it sit overnight, then cleaned up that stuff with water and baking soda (the directions said to use borax, but baking soda seemed to do the trick just as well). Once the water had dried, we stained the wood a lovely golden color, which I chose simply because it was my favorite, but it just happens to match the other wood in the house almost perfectly (go us!).
The stain took a really long time to dry, so we only got one coat of finish on the floor Sunday night, which meant we had to put off the remaining three coats until Monday. Which was probably just as well, because we were both horribly sore by that point. Sanding for that long had taken a lot out of us… the vibrations were murder on our hands, and our knees didn’t appreciate all the kneeling for the hours of detail work.
I was still really sore when I got to work on Monday, only to discover that my office had flooded over the weekend. A water heater on the third (top) floor just outside the CEO’s office had burst some time Friday night, and the water ran unabated until someone discovered the problem on Sunday evening. At that point, the water was ankle deep on the third floor and had permeated the ceilings, walls, and stairwells on through to the ground level. About half the building was fairly damaged (none of my stuff, luckily), and about half the occupants (including half of my department) had to move to a different building. So I got to spend a portion of the day helping tear down and move electronic equipment, activities of which my body did not approve. ;) And then there was still the finishing of the finishing to do. Amanda and I did a coat over the lunch hour on Monday, then after work, and then a final coat late last night.
I stopped by over lunch today to check on the floor, and it looks really good. I’m really quite proud of the work we did. Especially when you consider the money we saved. After people here in the office found out we were refinishing our own floors, many mentioned the prices they’d paid to have their floors refinished, and depending on square footage, decade and contractor, prices ranged anywhere from $3,000 to more than $8,000. Not counting sweat equity, we managed to spend just under $280 on rentals and supplies. That’s less than $1 per square foot! It would have been closer to $400 without my Woodsmith Store discount, but that ~still~ would have been a savings of 90% or more over what it would have cost to contract that work out.
For our next major project, Amanda and I are thinking we’ll tackle the kitchen floor. The linoleum has warped and cracked in a few places, so we’ll probably tear it all out and lay down a new floor. We’re thinking either ceramic tile or a laminate faux-tile, depending on price, durability, and feasibility.
But not for a while. I think we’re ready for a break. :)
Update: I finally got around to posting a pic of my floor. Check it out above.
Reason #23 I’m glad I live at the top of a big freaking hill: Take a look at what the base of the hill looked like on Tuesday evening after the heavy rains of the day. Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway (or, as I lovingly call it, MLKJrPKWY) was completely flooded from just north of Euclid to its northern tip. Water was running down the huge-assed hill, across the road, and into the river (or at least giant pipes next to the river). Unfortunately, this also flooded the road at the same time. I (among many other commuters) had to drive through the water, which had quite a current to it, just to get to the other side. I probably could have gone around, but not everyone could have. Sitting behind me at the intersection pictured above is a day care center. So most parents had to ford the River King, oxen be damned, just to pick their kids up after work.
