20_Finishing Hardwood Flooring

As the kitchen cabinets had arrived, it was a good incentive for us to finish the hardwood flooring. Not only to have a functional kitchen, we also needed to vacant some space in the garage. In principles, we had to sand the hardwood flooring to make it in the same color tone, and then applied polyurethane on it. In reality, we had to sand the floor multiple times with different sanders and sandpapers; and so did the polyurethane. These two tasks that looked simple ended up took the whole week to finish L

Sanding, sanding, sanding

To sand the hardwood flooring, we needed a sanding machine. This machine was very expensive but Home Depot rented it; so we rented one on July 28^th for two days. In addition, we bought sandpapers number 24, 36, and 60.  The higher the number, the softer it gets.

Left: The floor sander. Right: Various sandpapers. 

My husband operated the floor sander while I cleaned the sand dust afterwards. He started with sandpaper number 24 for the old floor, to take out its color. Once he finished sanding, I cleaned the sand dust so he could see whether the floor was sanded evenly; if not, he would sand more to make it looked even. This time I used a normal home vacuum cleaner because its brush was perfect for cleaning the sand dusts. The industrial vacuum cleaner didn’t have any brush.

Left: The vacuum cleaner. Right: The downdraft vent. 

My husband never used this kind of floor sander before, so he had to get his way around. However, after using it for 4 hours, he felt tired so we had to call it a day. At this day also, we received our downdraft vent for the kitchen stove.

On the next day, my husband continued sanding using sandpaper number 24. After that, he used the sandpaper number 36. This time, he sanded the whole floor. At this point, the whole floor looked like in the same color tone. Honestly I didn’t know why we had to continue sanding with an increasing number of sandpaper. But my husband planned to sand it farther, to make it looked beautiful. By the end of the day, he finished sanding most of the floor with the sandpaper number 60; only left the master bedroom behind.

Left: The floor after being sanded with number 24. Right: The floor sander couldn't reach the edges.

The floor after being sanded with sanpaper number 60.

Left: We returned the floor sander and the sandpapers. Right: The sandpapers.

On July 30^th we continued working and tried to finish before 2.30PM because we didn’t want to pay any rent extension. We managed to finish before time and returned it. We then rent an edger to sand the edges that couldn’t be reached by the normal floor sander. For this edger, we took sandpaper number 36, 60, 80, and 100. We didn’t really know how far we should sand, we just did try and error based from different references on the Internet.

The edger itself had a weird design, it had a low grip that made the users had to bend. This, could injure the lower back; so dangerous! Maybe such tool was designated for small rooms only, I didn’t know. For sure my husband had trouble in operating it. He could only move for a few distances before the lower back pain caught him up. Luckily, at this day we had two visits from old friends; so my husband could take a break between edgings.

Left: The edger. Right: Sandpapers for the edger.

Left: My husband operated the edger; it needed a lot of bendings. Right: The edges after being sanded with the edger.

My husband continued edging on the next day, during lunchtime break and after working hours. In the end, he didn’t use the sandpapers number 80 and 100. He returned the edger on the day after and bought a little sander for me to sand the corners that couldn’t be reached by the other sanders. So the next sanding job was assigned to me. I sanded the whole corner in one afternoon, used the sandpaper number 60 and 80. Meanwhile, my husband filled the gaps in the hardwood flooring with a filler mix. The arched woods caused these gaps.

Above Left: The new hand sander. Below Left: A corner before being sanded. Right: The corner after being sanded with the hand sander.

On August 2^nd, my husband, again, rented another sander. This time was an orbital sander. He started to sand after working hours with the sandpaper number 80. As always, I cleaned the sand dusts. This tool has a square edge and could reach the corner; I didn’t understand why we didn’t use it from the beginning. After we finished sanding the whole room with sandpaper number 80, we continued with number 120. However, we couldn’t finish all when the time showed 10PM. We decided to continue on the next day.

Left: The orbital sander. Right: The finished floor after sanding.

On the next day, my husband started very early because he had to do PT at 6AM. So he went to the house afterwards. He managed to finish the task by lunchtime and returned the sander; with this, we only got charged for 1-day rent. I cleaned the dusts after working hours included the fans and windows, because the next step would be painting the floor with polyurethane. We didn’t want any dusts or debris got trapped in the paint.

Furthermore, we took out the gigantic refrigerator; the only one thing left in the house. This wasn’t easy as it only fits to the front door, and what I meant with fit was after we had to take out the door handle. We used a little dolly to carry it horizontally; once we reached the garage, we stood it and put the door handle back. Since we had a new fridge, we thought to sell the old one.

The refrigerator door that we had to take out.

Poly, Poly, Poly

My husband had 4-day weekend on August 4^th – 7^th, so we could work the whole day. Before we started applying polyurethane, we made sure again that everything was clean. We applied the poly from the back bedroom to the other bedrooms; we then continued to the big open space, started from the new family room to the hallways and finished at the front door. It took us 2.5 hours to finish it.

The floor before painted with polyurethane (Left) and after (Right).

After applying the first coat of polyurethane, we should let it dry for 24 hours; so we left the house. But when we about to leave, we realized that we forgot to turn off the light in the hallway L. We went to the apartment to take a rest. In the afternoon, we returned to the house to work on the outside i.e. tidy up the garage and mowing the lawn.

On the next day, we returned after 24 hours to apply the second coat. Before we applied it, we sanded the floor. This time by using sandpapers number 220 that were stuck to a mop pole; so it was like mopping but harder. We applied the poly from the bedrooms again, but this time we ended it at the back door. And this time, we forgot to close the bathroom window.

My husband sanded the floor before applying the second coating.

In the afternoon, I put an advertisement about the refrigerator on Facebook. I advertised it for $100. In less than 5 minutes, I got a potential buyer and we set an appointment to meet on the next day. After that, there were 5 people contacted me, saying that they were interested. That’s crazy! I never sold anything so easy like this. Beside, I thought nobody would be interested with a used and dented appliance.

On August 6^th, we finally put the last coat of polyurethane. But before that, we sanded again. Working in a place with new applied polyurethane wasn’t easy, the chemical made my eyes feeling burned and I also had nausea even though I always wore a mask. So when it was finally finished, I was so glad. Even more, I didn’t have to hear any sanding machines and noisy vacuum cleaner.

I always wore a mask during the application of polyurethane.

At this point, we had reached another milestone. No more large-scale work that we had to do. From now on, it would be only small patchy works including the installation of the kitchen cabinets.

Since my husband still had 1.5 days of holiday, he decided to drive back to PA to get more of his tools. Meanwhile, I just rested in the apartment. He arrived back in Fayetteville very late on August 7^th and decided to unload the stuff on the next day.

The shiny floor after 3 coatings of polyurethane.