September of 2017 Hendrik and I purchased our first investment property together and I had big plans of being an HGTV star! LOL. We planned on renting the property out after doing some updates and things. I have a ton of posts of the before and after process in my drafts to work on but one that deserves its own is refinishing the real wood floors that were still intact in all 3 bedrooms. I had never done any sort of refinishing or any sort of DIY renovations before so this entire process was a learning process. I took advice from a carpenter that told me all the tools and things to use but I did ALL the work by myself and it was WORK let me tell you!
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| left was after 1 sanding right is original |
After pulling the remaining carpet nails and things up around the edges the first step was sanding with a coarse grain sanding pad to get the old stain up.
After I did the coarse pad twice I went back over it with a finer grain pad to smooth out the raw wood and finish cleaning it up. Using the big sander was fun and I loved watching it just eat away at all the old stain. The part that REALLY sucked was taking a little round sander and getting all around the edge of the rooms. It was dusty, noisy, and hard to control not to mention it didn't do the same great job as the big belt sander. I powered through though and did get it done. You can notice in the picture below the outer border is a bit darker that is because of that one sander that I had to bend over and operate!
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| all done sanding and floor is ready for new stain |
Once the sanding and clean up was all done it was time for new color! I applied the stain in two coats to make sure the color was even.
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| after stain but before sealer |
After color went on I applied the sealer that protects the wood, the new stain, and also makes it a bit shiny. I didn't use a super thick sealer as I wanted the farm house feel and more natural look not too shiny.
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| all complete and beautiful |
The color of the floors ended up so rich and went perfect with the laminate floors that were going throughout the rest of the house. I'm glad that I learned this process and also that the floors turned out so great. It was such hard work and a long process. For an impatient person like me it was aggravating because I just wanted it to be done but there are so many little things that go into it. I would definitely redo original wood floors in the future because now that I have done it once I understand the process. Not only does it help preserve the house but it is also cheaper than installing new flooring of any type in my opinion.
More to come on the Whitten Property...soon!
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