Refinishing the Floors

As soon as we first looked at this house, I knew I wanted to refinish the floors for a couple of reasons.

1. The floors are currently not stained, which makes them very light and kind of yellow. I prefer a medium-tone, warmer brown color for floors.
2. The floors used to be a very dark stain that was removed lazily, so you can see bits of the old color in corners, under radiators and in other various places.
3. The finish has worn off in several places, making the wood really vulnerable to anything that gets spilled on it and an ugly grey color.
4. There are gouges and scrapes in lots of places.
5. There are a lot of paint drips (not from me) and other mysterious things stuck to the floors.

looking down at the spindles on the staircase- you can see the old dark stain that was never removed

some deep scratches in the bedroom

the floor looks grey where the finish has worn off

So, we knew we wanted to redo them, but never really made it a priority to get started. Since we're redoing the kid's room now, it seems like a good time to get in there, before a baby arrives. And as long as we're doing one room, we might as well do the whole floor. (Of course we would rather do the whole house, but we're going to cut this project in half both to reduce cost and chaos, and come back for the downstairs once the kitchen is ready. Our house has a fun feature of having pine upstairs and oak downstairs, which was common in the early 1900s, so it's not like the floors would match perfectly anyway.)

I would love to do this project myself. In fact, I have done this before, and it's not that big of a deal. But, my doctors wouldn't clear it, and Spouso didn't want to do it all by himself, so we opted to hire it out instead. (This is one project where you don't save that much by doing it yourself, so we didn't feel too bad contracting it out).

Step 1. Make Backup Plans
Once we got a few estimates, picked a flooring company and started talking through the logistics, we realized that we would be stuck downstairs for a couple days and nights. So we packed some clothes and moved the air mattress downstairs. We figured that we could shower at our neighborhood gym and brush our teeth in the kitchen sink, but had no good options for restrooms. So we installed a toilet in the future half bath. Probably most people don't need to start out their floor refinishing projects by adding toilets to their houses randomly, but this was sort of critical for us-- and it was going to get done eventually anyway.

halfbath is all finished! Let's call it "rustic-chic".

Step 2. Get Everything Out of the Way
We already worked on emptying out the new kid's room, but the rest of the upstairs still had lots of stuff in it. The night before they arrived, we quickly moved all the small stuff, drapes, wall art, and clothes out of the rooms. As much as possible got piled onto the sleeping porch, and the rest got dumped throughout the downstairs. When the floor guys arrived on the first day, they moved the heavy furniture out to the sleeping porch.

Step 3. Scrape and Sand
Then they started sanding down the floors to remove the dirt and grime, old finish, paint drips, scrapes, and whatnot. They hand-scraped the steps, getting at all the old dark stain that had been left behind. They used a big drum sander for the floors, and a smaller rotary sander to get closer to the walls. They hung some plastic sheets to cordon off the area to reduce dust, but it was still a pretty big mess. It was also ridiculously loud, so the cats were not happy.  This was a really long day, but they did a really good job. After they left, we were able to carefully walk on the freshly-sanded floors, but tried hard (but unsuccessfully) to keep the cats off.

stairs getting hand scraped

green room all sanded down

Step 4. Stain
Before they finished sanding on the first day, we tried out stain colors. We knew we wanted a medium, warmish tone, but weren't exactly sure which stain to pick. So we tried 3 samples of MinWax: Provincial, Early American, and Special Walnut. Once they were applied and somewhat dry, we quickly chose Special Walnut. I'm not particularly surprised, since this is just a lighter shade of the stain I usually use on furniture, but it was interesting how different they looked on the floor than in the pamphlet.

stain samples on the floor

stain colors on the website & pamphlet

The second day, after they finished a bit more sanding, they applied the stain. It went on pretty quickly and was immediately gorgeous. Then they left to let it dry overnight. There were slight fumes, but nothing serious, so we slept on the air mattress on the first floor again. Unlike the previous night, we really couldn't walk on the freshly-stained floors, so keeping both us and the cats out became the real trick of the evening. We had to build some serious box walls to keep them out. (Thankfully, we have no shortage of boxes right now).

green room with stain

cat box wall

Step 5. Install New Shoe Molding
Part of the project was to replace the shoe molding, which had to be removed for the sanding process. We wanted the new shoe molding to be painted, not stained, so we worked out a deal with the floor guys to drop off lots of shoe molding the first day. Then I painted it in the garage on the second day, where it hung out to dry. On the third day, they cut the painted shoe molding and installed it. This way, I didn't have to worry about trying to paint the shoe molding in place, where I would almost certainly end up painting the new floors, or having to use painter's tape which I'm not a big fan of anyway.

new shoe molding goes in, but there's a visible gap between it and the baseboards

Step 6. Finish
After they finished with the new shoe molding, they applied a sealant to the floor and then polyurethane. We opted for water-based poly instead of oil-based, because it has fewer fumes and dries faster. They put down 2 coats throughout the day, giving it a couple hours to soak in and dry between layers. Then they left to let it finish drying. The fumes were almost non-existent, but we needed to stay off the floors to let them dry and cure, so we stayed downstairs again and left the windows open upstairs.

green room with poly

piles of cats and all our stuff crammed in the dining room

Step 7. Caulk and Paint the Molding One Last Time
The next morning, I crawled out of the air mattress one last time to finish up the trim. They had already cut and installed the painted shoe molding, but there was a significant gap between the new shoe and the old baseboards. So I caulked the gap, let it dry, and then painted the caulk. Let me tell you how tired of molding I was at this point - now at least the third time I've had to scoot myself around the floor messing with the trim, which does look much better, but still looks lumpy and bumpy in lots of places.

the same corner I've been showing you- all done

Step 8. Move Back
The night of the fourth day, we carefully moved our bed back into our room. The next morning, the team showed up to quickly move the heavy furniture back into place. That night, we moved the last of the small things back where they belonged. In only five days, our house went from normal to disaster zone to better than normal. Now everything is finally back together and looking fantastic.

closeup of the floors - darker, shinier and without junk

The floors look great. I was worried when they initially put the stain down because it seemed a little too dark- but once the finish was dry and it had a nice sheen, I was totally convinced. Everything looks warm and classy. The floors are all uniform, without drips, scratches, bad spots or weirdness, and the trim really pops. We are very happy with all of the rooms, but most excited to finally get to put together the kid's room.

sneak peak of the kid's room- stuff starting to go in