New Floor

We put on the gloves (too late...) and went to work on our bedroom floor. It's been bugging me for a while--we bought the house over a year ago, and it was sanded but not finished. We optimistically thought it would be done before we'd have to sand it again. Riiighhhhtttt...

Regardless, we were pushed into doing it this week by our little jerk of a new addition (Charlie Dog) who decided to pee on the unfinished floor. I think, mostly, because it was the only place in the house he hadn't yet peed.

Anyway, we rented a sander, and kind of last minute like, went to work!

I'm grateful to have family close by and willing to help--we had people move us out of the room (thankfully, because i wasn't much help with my gimp leg) on Friday. At that point, as a curious sidenote, my sister Heidi wondered what was in the attic looking thing on the ceiling. Being much more adventurous (or more motivated??) than we have been in the year we've been looking up at it each night as we fall asleep, she climbed on up. We joked about hoping she found some treasure. Well, to someone it may have been just that! I'm not exactly sure WHY they are there, but someone held on to some very detailed work notes for years and years of work! We've got stacks of them. I was hoping to find some money mixed in the middle. :) not the case. But we did decide it was worth reading to see if they mention where to find the buried treasure...or something!?! (because i know that there are hoarders around, but...why would you keep that up in a crawlspace!?!)

Anyway, Friday we finished moving things out, and then Saturday, we went off to spend much more than we originally thought we would on supplies and the sander. :) But then we were committed....we might not EAT for another few weeks, but at least our floor will look pretty!

We got all our supplies, and then had to work past a mini-panic attack where we were pretty un-sure feeling and just wishing someone was around that new what they were doing. I called Melanie for that reason SEVERAL times the days leading up to this adventure (she'd done her floors a few years earlier), and several times that morning. Then Julie came and brought her kids to distract my kids (seriously, we didn't see them the whole time we were working!) and we got down to business. It took a long time, and was pretty disgusting to see the difference between the new clean floor and our old dingy one. But we got it all sanded. Did have a little mis-adventure where my dad said he thought it wouldn't matter if we went against the grain. We tried a little spot in the computer room--and, just for the record, it DOES matter. We even tried to go over it before we stained to go with the grain--didn't help. But overall, it went pretty smoothly. Julie, bless her soul, brought over lunch (we don't think about things like food ahead of time, apparently--my kids and our tummies were very grateful!)

After sanding, we did all the work to clean up the sawdust. We had to vacuum with the shop-vac, and use rags to help finish the clean up. After that, we put on the stain! It went on dark, but pretty. We used a roller, and it went pretty quickly.

Over the next few days, we continued to stain, wait, clean, varnish, wait, sand, clean, varnish, wait, sand, and clean. And voila! It looks great.

More workers helped me get our room set back up so that by Monday night we were sleeping in our bed again. YAY!

Anyway, it went well! I am really happy with the way it turned out, and glad that i have family around that is willing to drop everything and come help. Julie, this means you.