Getting Faster

Now with two rooms behind us, we felt energized to start on the den and dining room, which had been waiting for a few weeks.  Sunday night, we put in our first row the entire length of the room, over 47 feet!

By quitting time Sunday, we backfilled all the lovely little areas in between the columns, and we were ready to start on some long runs Monday...

After Monday night...

Zach busy working Tuesday night...

And, here is our progress after Wednesday night's work.  You can see how we are getting close to the wall and had to move the wood, AGAIN!

 

With the dining room and den almost completely laid out, it is about time for Zach and I move.  We are headed to the back wing of the house while we demo our family room, kitchen and master bedroom, hopefully soon!

In Our Free Time

While working on the back two bedrooms, we hit a couple of unplanned snags.  The weekend we were planning to start laying the floors, we found out Friday evening that we couldn't just buy the nails we needed at Home Depot.  We needed 1 1/2" nails, and Home Depot, Lowes, Ace, pretty much any store you can think of had 1" and 2" nails, but NO 1 1/2".  Then, we were planning on sanding the floors over a weekend, but didn't quite feel ready, we wanted to finish a few small details, so decided to postpone.

These weekends were spent turning this...

into this...

First, we did some serious demo.  We spent a weekend taking up tile, and then the thin set beneath the tile...

The next free weekend, we went to work putting down the subfloor...Here's a shot of all of the plywood nailed down, a good day's work...

Next, we rolled out the tar paper, brought in some wood to acclimate, and let everything sit for a few weeks, while we focused on finishing the back two bedrooms.  But, we returned to this room Sunday...

Two Rooms and A Hallway - Done and Done

Last Sunday, we OFFICIALLY finished our back two bedrooms and hallway. 

Kevin came down Saturday to help...they had LOTS of fun :)

One of FOUR coats of finish waiting to be spread...

And, after one coat of shellac, four coats of finish, and lots of buffing in between, we are DONE!!!

We really couldn't be happier with how it turned out, and, finishing this area gave us the boost we needed to get going on the rest of the house.

The FINISHED product!

Test Room

The day finally arrived to finish the floor!  We decided that we wanted to do a test room, just to make sure things went according to our plans.

The second bedroom was the winner!!  It is the smaller of the two rooms, and is currently the guest bedroom.  With a queen size bed, nightstand and bookshelf, it's pretty full, so, we figured, if the room ended up a disaster, we would have a lot of furniture to cover up mistakes :)

We buffed the floor one last time with a 120 grit screen.  Here's the machine post-use hanging out in the back 3rd bedroom...

We vacuumed and wiped the floor down, and then got to work.  First to go on, the shellac sealer...

Here you can see where we have cut in with a paint brush around the room...

And here Zach applying the sealer with a paint roller...

The difference is amazing...

The room completely shellacked!

The sealer only needed 45 minutes to dry, so we waited patiently, watched the Suns lose to Utah, then went back to put on the first of three coats of finish.  We used a synthetic paint brush to cut in, and a synthetic pad to apply to the rest of the room...

After one coat of finish...

This morning, dry, in the natural light...

We are VERY happy with how it is looking so far, we have two more coats of finish to apply, and then this room is officially DONE!!  Except of course for putting the trim back up and repainting the walls, but those are just little details ;)

Playing with Finishing

Since before this project ever officially moved inside our house, we have been trying to decide how we wanted the finished product to look.  Zach made a little sample board, so that we could play with finishes and stains.

After looking at TONS of photos online and in books and magazines, we decided we wanted to leave the floor its original color, and not add stain.  Although we both LOVE the idea of dark floors, we have a lot of dark furniture, so we want to make sure we have a nice contrast. 

When we decided not to stain, we only had to decide on a finish.  The options basically come down to oil based vs. water based. 

Below is our sample...
Top Layer - Water Based Sealer, Water Based Finish - Blah, it does NOTHING for the wood
2nd Layer from Top - Unfinished Wood - As you can see, the top two layers look VERY similar
2nd Layer from Bottom - Oil Based Finish
Bottom Layer - Wax Free Shellac Sealer, Water Based Finish - THE WINNER!!!

We really liked both the oil-based finish and the shellac sealer plus water based finish.  They have a VERY similar look, and, after researching we found that both provide excellent durability and protection for the wood.  We decided to go with water-based finish because of its ease of application and quick drying time.  It will be completely cured in 48 hours, where as oil-based finish can take up to two weeks.  Also, water-based finish doesn't yellow or "amber" over time, which can happen with oil-based finish.

The Devil is in the Details

After finishing sanding last weekend, we were SO excited to start finishing the wood!  FINISH!!!!  Yay!! 
But...we had SEVERAL little, time consuming projects to finish up before we were able to move on to the final finishing step...

Because we are raising the floor about an inch and a half, we had to put in a new threshold on the door to our third car garage.

This involved tearing out the old one, inserting plywood (two pieces glued together) to raise the threshold to its new desired height, and cutting everything to size, and gluing/nailing it all in place.

And, then, we got to cut the door so that it would close :)

Next on the to-do list was creating reducers for the hall bath and laundry room.  We are leaving the existing flooring, tile in the bath and linoleum in the laundry, so, we had to make the transition from the now 1 1/2" hardwood to the 3/8" tile and even smaller linoleum less noticeable...

When we couldn't find pre-made reducers...Zach decided to make his own.

Here are the plans...

And, here is the work in progress, one piece of oak glued to pieces of plywood to make a solid piece 1 1/2' thick, all secured together drying...

After a lot of measuring, holding, sawing, more measuring, more holding, more sawing, we (mostly Zach) created new CUSTOM reducers!!!

Here is where it will be installed in the bathroom...

And ta-da, the finished product!

The rest of the week was spent doing much less exciting, but still necessary, work to get everything ready to finish.  We scrapped and sanded the corners of rooms and closets that we couldn't get to with the edger, we vacuumed and dusted everything, cleared the area of all the tools, etc, etc, etc....

Next up: FINSIHING!!

Left with the Dust

After what was very close to 24 hours of sanding, we were left with DUST, and LOTS of it...

Our trash can...about 1/2 full of dust...

The window sills...

Thank goodness for our TWO plastic barriers shielding this project from the rest of the house!!

Sanding, Sanding and, A Bit More Sanding

This past weekend was filled with...you guessed it...SANDING!! We rented a lovely drum sander and a very nice "edger" from our trusty old Home Depot last weekend, Friday night at 9pm to be exact (yes, we are that cool :) )!

We got to work right away, sanding off all of the finish. We finally turned off the machines around 12:30AM, here's a LOVELY shot...



Here is a peak at the real potential in the flooring...you can see the edges of the room have been sanded down...


We spent our entire Saturday sanding, the entire floor was sanded FOUR times...once diagonally to make sure all boards were the same height, then with 36 grit sand paper, then 60 grit sand paper, then adding filler (to "hide" any gaps or gouges), then sanding once more with 100 grit sand paper. With each sanding taking about 2 hours...we BARELY finishes by our 9PM deadline Saturday evening (trying to keep the rental under 24 hours).

Zach applying filler with a trowel...



The floor...before and after sanding the filler off...





The FINISHED SANDED PRODUCT!!!



WE MADE IT... We took a 30 SECOND break to take a quick pic before we rushed to get our equipment back to Home Depot before the 9PM closing, yes, we are COVERED in dust and yes, I am falling asleep standing up and Zach is SUPER excited to be done ;)

Sanding Preview....

What a weekend we had...more to come...