We did it ourselves and I'm so proud of us

A few weeks ago we refinished the floor in the future crafty room. We were so pleased with the way it turned out that we decided to do our dining room and living room floors as well. We decided to do them both in one long weekend. Get it over and done with, only have to clean up the dust once.

We moved all of the furniture into the crafty room and sealed the door as well as we could to keep the dust out.

Like the crafty room these were the original floor boards, mainly unfinished with a painted boarder. These rooms had a much larger painted boarder, which meant more intense sanding.

 But before we got to that part we had to fix a few boards. Wes started at that while I ran to the hardware store to rent the sanders. I came home and he is trying to rig something up to hold a board steady while the glue dried. He was using my hand weights, string, and a screw hook.  He gave me that look when I asked him what he was doing. You know the this would be a hole lot easier if you just let me buy the expensive quick clamps that I wanted so this is all your fault and I'm going to by pissy for the rest of the day look. He forgot that I had some clamps hiding upstairs in my sewing room for the quilting frame. I felt really good being able to save the day. BTW: quick clamps have been added to the pick-up-at-the-home-improvement-store-when-we-have-some-extra-cash list. To avoid future looks while trying to glue the floor back together.

After the boards were fixed and most of the nails set, it was time for the sanding.

It took allot to get all that paint up off the floor.

Fourteen hours of sanding. Fourteen hours of back and forth with the drum sander and squatting down with the edger. I found that I couldn't kneel and do it so I had to be in a half squat. My poor tush and legs were so sore the next day.
And my back and my arms and my abs...

We did about an hour break in there. The edging sander took a poop. Turned it off to change out the paper and it wouldn’t turn back on. Off to the hardware store we went. I was crossing my fingers and toes that it could be fixed. They only had one at that store and the one at their other location was rented out for the weekend. I wanted this project to be done this weekend. I would probably would have gone into melt-down mode if they weren't able to get it up and running.

Before we went the boys took it apart, cleaned it, and did some trouble shooting. They thought it might be the switch. At the hardware store Mr. B changed it out and it started right up.  The clerk was busy with other customers so he set up Mr. B with the tools and the new part and let him go at it. It’s times like these that I’m so glad I married a handy man!

 

The next morning we drug our tired, sore asses out of bed and finished cleaning up the dust on the floor.

Then it was time for the polyurethane. Two coats on Saturday. Then we were off to my parents to escape the toxic fumes and celebrate Easter. Man does that stuff stink. Mr. B swears he was getting high off the fumes by the time we left.

 

Unfortunately two coats wasn't enough. When we got home there was some blotchy spots and bubbles. I cried. More work, more time that our house was turned upside down. I pulled it together and we sanded and ran to Menard's that night. The next morning we put a third coat of poly on the floor before we went into work. Poor Gus was confined to the mud room and didn't get any good naps in. He told me that he needs to sleep on the ottoman or the bed. He's an old man and the floors aren't comfortable.

The floors do look nice. I am glad that we did the extra work and put the third coat on.

Tonight we finally get to put our furniture back! Mr. B did hook up the TV in our room, so the past few nights we've had movie nights in bed. It's a nice treat but I'm ready for things to go back to normal.