House Journal - Floor Debacle
This weekend our major goal was to re-finish the wood floors. We planned on getting to the house early and just "rock and rolling" until we were done. So I should have taken it as a sign when we stopped at the Lowe's to pick up the floor sander - theirs was being repaired. So we drove further west while I called a few places and finally located one at a rental shop in Chelsea. We thought we were in good shape.
Here's a quick before picture of the floors - they are in pretty rough shape.
So we started with the random orbit sander from the rental shop, and... well it sucked. We worked with for a good half hour and got nowhere.
Tim ran back over the Chelsea and picked up some more abrasive sandpaper, and it didn't help much. It didn't help any that there is a lot unevenness in the boards. So I made a few calls located a drum sander. Of course, the nearest one we could find was all the way back in Ypsilanti. So we ran over there, picked it up, 4 hours after we started our we were finally making some progress.
We all took turns running the machine and crawling on the floor using the hand sander to get in the corners.
Here you can see what we're doing. On the left - original floor On the right - freshly sanded.
We managed to get through all the rooms with the drum sander as a first pass. I returned the square orbital sander and picked up a 4 disc sander which we use tomorrow for a second coarse pass and then a finish sanding. We also picked out some stain: "English Chestnut". It's nice and dark with brown and a hint of red. We wanted to go on the darker side to help mask some stains in the floor that the sanding is not taking out, as well as give it a nice "old" feeling.
Here's a quick before picture of the floors - they are in pretty rough shape.
So we started with the random orbit sander from the rental shop, and... well it sucked. We worked with for a good half hour and got nowhere.
Tim ran back over the Chelsea and picked up some more abrasive sandpaper, and it didn't help much. It didn't help any that there is a lot unevenness in the boards. So I made a few calls located a drum sander. Of course, the nearest one we could find was all the way back in Ypsilanti. So we ran over there, picked it up, 4 hours after we started our we were finally making some progress.
We all took turns running the machine and crawling on the floor using the hand sander to get in the corners.
Here you can see what we're doing. On the left - original floor On the right - freshly sanded.
We managed to get through all the rooms with the drum sander as a first pass. I returned the square orbital sander and picked up a 4 disc sander which we use tomorrow for a second coarse pass and then a finish sanding. We also picked out some stain: "English Chestnut". It's nice and dark with brown and a hint of red. We wanted to go on the darker side to help mask some stains in the floor that the sanding is not taking out, as well as give it a nice "old" feeling.