Maegan and Cody vs. the Floors: Episode 2

Last time on Maegan and Cody vs. the Floors:

• Maegan and Cody said GOODBYE to the carpet.
• Maegan struggled with laminate glue.
• Phillip and Cody patched a giant hole in the hardwood.
• That new patch was a lot shinier than the old stuff.

So much has happened since then! I'm a little behind on the blogging, but I'll keep posting things in chronological order, just to keep us all sane. Let's continue in this hardwood floor saga...

We knew we would have to sand all the floors before staining them. So, we rented a push-sander from Home Depot. I don't think they're called push-sanders. But they remind me of push-mowers, so that's what I've called it.

This could be an advertisement for your tool rentals, Home Depot.

It's exactly like using a push mower. Except instead of cutting grass, you're making dust. So much dust. During allergy season, this is the worst. Especially since we live in the #1 Worst City for Allergies in the U.S. I read that somewhere. It's completely true. 

Dust City

I want to disclaim here that I did my fair share of sanding. There are, however, no pictures to document this.

We sanded the entire house pretty easily. But the brand new hardwood in the bedroom was readily available to make this process difficult. Thank goodness, because we might have fallen over if something in this house had worked out perfectly.

Shiny and new...not always preferable.

We started with the push-sander, using 30 grit sandpaper. Those familiar with how sandpaper grits work will understand that 30 grit is almost the same as sanding with gravel. The shiny new hardwood still gleamed like the Chrysler Building. We tried putting the 30 grit on a hand-sander, but it was just too rough to stay put. We also tried to pour paint thinner directly onto the new floor (cringe), and sand over that. We were stumped.

Whatever that company used to protect the hardwood is good stuff. Even the people at Lowe's told us that our task was near impossible. Did we even need floors? What if we just put in trampolines instead of floors? That was a childhood dream of mine. At least they wouldn't have to be sanded...

Cody's face = our feelings for a whole 3 days.

I know what you're thinking: why not just buy unfinished hardwood? Yes, that would be easier. But, the stain wouldn't match with our existing floors. They had to be somewhat similar to the old stuff. For some reason, though, Lowe's doesn't sell used hardwood from the 1960s. If only there was a big enough market for that.

Here we go again.

The trampolines were a no, so we had to keep sanding. At the end, it was just the combination of all he elbow grease we had. (We have four elbows, combined.) We were satisfied enough with the sanding job. 

After cleaning up all the dust, we were ready to begin staining! I was so excited for this part. After we wiped up the first bit of stain, however...

"What do you think?" Cody asked.

"I don't know," I replied.

"Well do you like it or not?"

"It looks...uh...I need to see a bigger section."

Every single imperfection in the floor was showing. Foot traffic, carpet staples, random big dark spots: everything! Much more than the original floor showed.

I was nervous.

Contemplating.

I had worried about the floor not matching, I had worried about letting people see the mistakes. But once I saw a whole room with the stained floors, I forgot about all (most) of it. This house has been lived in, and this house has been walked on. Maybe showcasing this imperfect floor could be a tribute to the history behind it. Maybe highlighting the imperfections, glorifying the foot traffic paths, and sharing that history with others would be special. 

Not solid, not consistent...it's perfect!

It adds character. I've heard that phrase a thousand times in my life, and it makes sense now.

Honestly, the floors look awesome. After two coats of polyurethane, they were perfect. 

"These are dancin' floors!" - Cody

The new part...was still annoying. We had to scruff it up to give it some character. We tried to match the patterns in the existing floors, and used hammers and a variety of knives to make it worn.

Close enough...yeah?

It doesn't match up perfectly, but we did it, and it's ours. (And if it looks bad, there's always area rugs!) I'm so happy with the rest of the floors, though. We've put so much "new" into this house, and it's nice to have something old. I might be wrong, but I think that some people might want these floors. If anyone ever asks how we did it, I'm going to have to say this: "It's about 40 years of work; we just didn't do all of it ourselves." 

Maegan and Cody vs. the Floors continues! Stay tuned for Episode 3: Polyurethane and baseboards.