Be sure to check out the previous parts of this series:
Part I: Demo
Part II: More Demo
Part III: Repairing Subfloor
Part IV: Installing

Ok.  Wow.  Time to sand.

First… happy belated Thanksgiving!  This post was half-written when I left for some quality family time in Chicago over the holiday. 

I found this article online about how to sand the floor.  It recommended that I start at a higher grit like 80, and sand diagonally across the floor.  This is to ensure that the floor is evenly sanded across the lateral seams.  That seemed odd to me, as I’d never sand like that on furniture.  But ok, I’ll take the pro’s advice.



You can see in that picture that I’ve completed my diagonal sanding and have started the with-the-grain sanding.  I’ve moved to 100 grit sand paper, now.  It looks to me, as I’m sanding, that my diagonal lines are being sanded away as I go deeper into the wood.



In that picture, you can’t even see any lines any more.    “Victory!”, I say to myself.   As we’ll learn later… this didn’t end up as the victory I thought it would.



Dani takes a moment to both take a picture of the sanded floor and show off her new boots.  I don’t know what it is with women and boots these last few winters.  They’re not even boots!  They’re shoes with more space for frilly things. 

So after a lot of vacuuming, sweeping, and gentle mopping, I was ready for the finishing process.  We opted not to stain the floors.  We really liked the color of the wood in it’s natural state.  We also opted to go the environmentally friendly route and used a water-based system.  Minwax seemed to have a good system, and so I went with that.  It was not inexpensive.  Compared to the cost of the normal oil-based stuff, the water-based system is easily double.  But, I could put another coat on 2 hrs after the first coat, it cleans up with water, and my house didn’t smell for 3 weeks afterwards.  With the oil-based stuff, you’re supposed to sleep somewhere else for 3 days.  That’s crazy!  Who would want those chemicals seeping into their home? 

First step, then, was to put a coat of Minwax Water Based Polyurethane for Floors Base Coat on. 

The base coat, according to Minwax’s website, “seals the wood grain, preventing discoloration (tannin reaction) between the wood and Minwax^® Water Based Polyurethane for Floors. Many water based finishes have a high pH level that can react with bare wood causing it to discolor.”

Mmmmmmk.  Sounds good.  The stuff went on easy enough, too.  I used a lambs wool applicator on a stick.  Pretty standard.

Two hours later, it was time for the first coat of poly. 

The Water Based Minwax Polyurethane for Floors poured nice and easy, and once I had a system worked out, it went pretty quick.  I found the best way to do it was to keep a bead of poly on the floor and to work with the grain, gradually moving the bead 6 inches at a time up the grain. 

Once I had 2 coats on, I put some finishing sandpaper onto a drywall sanding pole and went around sanding for an hour.  This was the hardest part of the application process.. arms.  so.  tired.



The sanding is to smooth out everything prior to the final coat.  I chose to do 2 more coats; I’m hoping it gives me a little more longevity. 








After the vigorous sanding, Dani worked her butt off to sweep and mop up the mess while I rested my sanding-weary arms.



I also took the chance to snap this picture of the state of the kitchen during all this.  Ughh.



Well this post got a little longer than I anticipated.  I think I’ll keep you all in suspense and do The Reveal in a separate post.  So check back soon for the last post in the New Flooring series!

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If you haven’t already, check out part 1, part 2, and part 3 where I remove the old flooring, bleed from my fingers, put a toilet in the yard, and cut a hole into my house.

Installed flooring?  Yeah.  That’s what’s up. 




After some intense cleanup, I used my new laser line draw thing to put a line all the way across the house.  The thing is, it’s really important to get this line straight.  So buy the laser.  It doesn’t hurt that it’s a laser and fun to play with.  It freaks the crap out of animals.

The first night, I only got one row of flooring in.  I really really really didn’t want to mess up that first row.  Day two got us a bit further along.



We are watching New Girl right here.  Dani needs to ensure that Zooey and I don’t run off together.



Always more to clean when you are doing this.  Chunks of debris under flooring leads to creaks and lumps that will drive you insane the rest of your life.  My dad will vouch for this one.

Installing the floor pieces isn’t what takes the most time.  It’s the “little” stuff that does that.  Like finding just the right piece of flooring for the spot you are in, or trimming the base around door frames and entry ways.



The vibrating dremel tool was a huge time saver, here. 

At the end of day two, Dani and I did a lot of strolling back and forth on our 45 sq ft of installed floor.  It felt very regal.  We should have spoke with our very practiced high class English accents.  We may have waltzed.  Ok, that’s a lie.  I have no idea how to waltz; it’s been a long time since I was forced to learn during High School PE class. 





When day 3 came along, I had some reinforcements.  Eric came down from PA to help for a day and we made a lot of progress.   I think the last time Eric showed up here at My Dad’s Shoes is when he fried a turkey and didn’t burn down the house.



What Eric is doing, here, is using a wrench and a hammer to convince a stray nail that it wants to go the rest of the way into the floor.  We had to do a lot of this.  Being vigilant in finding the nails that stick up just a bit too much will save a lot of frustration when you find bumps in the floor.  So, yes.. progress was made with Eric’s extra set of hands.  But progress does not come without blood in this house.





Eric stepped on a nail, and I had a Dremel tool nearly take off my finger tip.  But hey, ‘close’ only counts in golf and nuclear warfare, right?




See that stack of short pieces against the wall?  Now is a good of time as any to say that an odd lot of flooring sucks.  But, given the amount of savings, it’s worth it.  My waste factor was higher, my frustration level was way higher, and I have a lot more seams than I’d like.  I also have a fair number of pieces of flooring installed that taper in width, but I didn’t catch it until it was too late.  But, at 1/3rd the cost, it’s still well worth it.  Buy an extra 5 to 10% waste. 



Let me just point out to the lady readers that it’s hot when women use a tape measure.   Hot.  Dani still has a number of tricks to keep me from Zooey.  Tool-use is a strong one.



Speaking of things worth their cost; this is one epic beer.  I wish I had an opportunity to get more of them before they vanished for the season.



A couple more hours of work after this last shot and we had our new floor completely installed.  This is still no where near the end of this project.  More to come!

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I know it’s been a while since I wrote on the flooring project.  It has been incredibly time-consuming, I’ll tell you that.  It’s the sort of project that you can’t ignore.  When I come home from work and find couches stacked on top of more couches in my kitchen, it’s a not-so-gentle reminder to get off my ass.  Which, ironically, I couldn’t have been on in the first place since all the couches are stacked in the kitchen. 

When last I spoke of it, I had really just started on ripping out the old floor.  Well, I did a lot more of that, and true to form, there was a fair amount of bleeding and yelling and wall damage.





I used a digging bar to get these sheets of laminate and backer board up.  It worked wonders.  The bar is very heavy.  I had some sore man-boobs.





This is another great example of when to wear gloves.  The nails on the bottom of these sheets put a few holes in my fingers.  I was wearing gloves until I ripped a few glove-tips off on nails, and then discarded them.  I ended up duck-taping over the ripped fingers and putting them back on, because I can only be stupid for so long.  Speaking of stupid.. I’m wearing flip-flops.  This is actually a step up from where I started; which was barefoot.  I’m a no-shoes-on-in-house guy, and it took a little time for my mind to transition from “you’re in the house” to “you’re in a construction zone”.



Here you can see where the dividing wall was when the house was built.  The wooden floor used to be the dining room, and where there is no wooden floor, there was an extra layer of old-school linoleum, because it was the original kitchen.  We’re talking like three kitchen-additions ago, here. 



Apparently I neglected to take (or can’t find) pictures of the stripped-bare floor.  This one is off of my phone.  You get the idea.  I had to take all the radiator covers off to get at the flooring underneath them.  Now the whole subfloor is exposed, though.  It’s tongue-and-groove 3/4” planks.  I went around and pounded in some nails that had wiggled their way loose over the last 75 yrs.  Overall, the floor was in good shape.  Except for the bathroom.



Yeah, that’s floor rot.  All around the toilet.  It was an unwelcome discovery after removing the toilet, sink, and all the contractor-grade tile.  I could push my hammer right through the wood.  I’ll probably do a brief post later on how I fixed that.

At this point, I’ve got all 800-some-odd sq ft of old flooring ripped out and piled in front of the front door, including carpeting, padding, the original hardwood, and two layers of laminate.   Most of it is still there.  Along with a toilet.  [sigh].  I’m that guy, now.

Next up; prepping for and doing the install!

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Hey guys!  “Darling wife” Dani here to give you a tour of the house.  I figured this would be a good introduction to the world of blogging for me and a good introduction to me for you, because this tour will take a few posts.  Also, I was thinking this way, when Kev writes about a project in the fill-in-the-blank room, you can picture exactly what's going on. 

Most rooms are in a “before” state, here.  While many of them have a fresh coat of paint or some other small projects completed, we’ve a long way to go, yet.



This is what the front of the house looked like the day we moved in. It no longer has that weird deck and wheelchair lift.  Oh, and those bushes are coming out this spring whether Kevin likes it or not.

Kevin and I often joke about what we would name our property if it were an estate and not simply a house.  Names like “the Sanctuary” or “Misty Farms” don’t quite fit.   Since we are on a rather large hill, Kevin likes ‘Mount Olympus‘ and likes to imagine himself Zeus.  For now, I’m just going to go with…

Welcome to our Home.

Today, I’ll take you through these rooms:

• Family Room
• Living Room
• Half Bathroom

The Family Room

When you walk in the front door, you’re facing the stairs to the second floor.  The main floor is split in two by the staircase; with  a living room on each side.   This first room we call the Family Room because it is the more casual of the two and also has the TV.  I wanted really simple paint colors in here, so we went with Belgian Sweet Chocolate by Behr on one wall and Classic Taupe by Behr on the rest of them.  The next project we are planning in this room is hardwood floors.  Then, I’ll get to go crazy picking out colorful furniture and getting rid of some of our early-marriage Ikea pieces.  

The Living Room

On the other side of the stairs is the Living Room, which still gets confusing so sometimes it’s called the fireplace room or, if Chicago relatives are in, the “frunchroom” (don’t ask me, you have to be from the midwest to get it).  After stripping the paint from the fireplace, the exposed brick and stained wood trim felt very colonial to me, so we went with colors that continued that feel.  Silent Tide is on the wall with the fireplace, and the other walls are Artic Ocean; both by Behr.





This room is a total hodge podge collection of furniture.  Most items I bought very spur-of-the-moment with the thought, “I’m tired of the room being empty.” or, “ I just want something to sit on by the fireplace.” Both love seats were a Craigslist purchase and the arm chairs were 50 bucks for the pair at goodwill (and they had slipcovers so they were super easy to clean). The rug was a floor model at Home Depot and was discontinued, so I got it for super cheap (50 bucks!  I just have to figure out how to get the sticker off). 

 

The Half Bathroom

This is the half-bath on the first floor.  The paint color is Cherry Cobbler by Behr.  For such a small room, the painting took a long time.  I painted on the matte first, then measured out and taped the diamonds onto the wall, and finally went back and filled in the diamonds with the glossy paint.  Now that I see the final result, I think it was definitely worth all the effort.
 

Later this week, look for my next post, Episode V: Great Danes Attack, in which Koa and Willow adventure through the rest of the first floor.

What do you think of my first post? 

What would you name your estate if you had one?

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We finally got around to hanging our wedding picture and some sconces up above the fireplace.  Also, time for the first fire of the season!

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First; a quick note about the "Living Room.".  It's not one.  It's a Family Room.  But my wife insists that it's a Living Room and that the room w/ the TV in it is the Family Room.  Ok, fine.  I often go w/ "Fireplace Room" and "TV Room", but it doesn't have a nice ring to it.

Anyway, Aunt Debbie came by and helped DW paint while Dad and I worked in the kitchen.

A Baltimore tradition.  A gross one.

First fire in the fireplace!

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