Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Maple Hardwood Floors

I have been working on a few different projects around the house. None of them as intense as the project of sanding and finishing the maple hardwood floors. When i bought this house, there was disgusting stained carpet everywhere, except the dining room and living room. So i tore that up and found hardwood floors...with paint and old finish on them...and lots of it. Somebody had taken a paint sprayer and sprayed the trim and not put down anything to block the paint from hitting the floor. (why i aughta)
So dad and i began taking paint remover and scraping it off...
after maybe a day of scraping shit off the floor on our hands a knees and a few pints, we decided we needed a knew method. Too much sweat was pouring out with little result.
We went to the next step of renting a floor sander...what a great idea, i just have to walk behind the damn thing.
Well i rented an orbital floor sander that just didn't quite do it. It wasn't strong enough and didn't take the paint off quick enough. After a day of that (and a few pints) we decided we needed a drum sander. With some recommendations i went to Pete's Hardwood Flooring in St. Paul. They gave me some training and sent me off with 3 different sanders: drum sander, edge sander, and a radiator sander.
With the help of some friends (Jordan, Adan and my Dad, thank you all) we started sanding. I knew this was going to be a really big job...but i wasn't sure quite how big. We sanded about 400 sq feet with 5 different grits of sand paper.
By the end of it i was exhausted. It took 3 long days of kick your ass work.
I decided to finish the floors with a flat finish made of wax, linseed oil and flaxseed oil. It looks great and isn't the traditional glossy floor finish you see in rich people's houses. hehe.

Here are some before and after photos:




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