line.
You may remember we started with carpet, ripped it up the day before move in, and found painted floors. There were 2-3 coats of paint, and some varnish to deal with so we could get down to the wood.
Steph's brother and I got a drum sander and started the job of removing the paint. Then Steph and I went crazy on it for a good 12 hour day the following week.
Between this last picture and the one that follows I couldn't find my camera, but basically I put in about 60 hours last week (and others chipped in here and there) to sand with three different types of sanders trying to get up all the gunk. After the sanding was done I flipped out for a few hours realizing there was still quite a bit of paint in hundreds of cracks and crevices. I was going to have to pick away at it with various sharp objects, and some chemical "green" stripper. I spent a couple days on that before I gave up and realized I could put up with the imperfections and messy "rustic" look.
This weekend I finally began to stain the floor. We like the dark wood look, so this was something we knew we had to do. A couple good friends recommended trying to do some touch up on paint spots after the stain was applied. They also warned me that I'd need a pre-stain wood conditioner and I'm so glad they did. Soft woods like this can turn out pretty crappy if you try to stain them w/o that. After the stain, I spent 3 or 4 hours with various wood fillers and wood pencil-crayon-thingies to touch up some of the most obvious spots, and I think it really helped.
Monday night I finally started laying down polyurethane. We did an oil based stain and a water-based polyurethane, and I think it worked well. Today I buffed and finished the third coat, and now we just wait. It can take about 72 hours before the floors can handle furniture.Overall this project has been a major headache, but I'd do it again. The wife and I are far from perfectionists, and didn't want to fork over a few thousand for a professional job. There's still quite a bit of paint in the cracks and dents, there are some parts were you can see marks from the sander, and there are little bits of grit and dust in certain parts of the finish. Still, we're pleased with the results and happy we got rid of the carpet. In a couple days here we'll really be able to move in; and it's about dang time.
