Cross Posted from r/HomeImprovementhttps://imgur.com/gallery/1OzgxwpI bought a house in September, and have been fully remodeling it. As part of this, I discovered these stunning white oak floors(original to the 1964 house, never refinished) covered up under some truly heinous carpet. As the remodel project is starting to draw to a close, I thought it was time to share with everyone.Process:I got virtually all of my information from https://ift.tt/1Povxbb. Truly a remarkable and helpful resource, I owe them a tremendous amount on this. Starting off, I prepped the area by spending hours on my knees pull nails and staples(shoutout to the gf for helping). I learned that no matter what, you will find more nails and more staples. This is to be expected, but the goal is to remove 99.5% before you start sanding. Once I had the floor clear, I went to sunbelt rentals and got my weaponsSanding: The pros recommend starting with 20 grit for old finishes, but it scared the crap out of me. I tried to start with a higher grit, and eventually gave in and listened. You have to alternate drum sanding and edge sanding, using the drum sander first on the entire floor area, then going back with the same grit and doing the edger. I had just over 650sq ft of sanding to do, so this took me a hot minute. My sanding sequence was 20 grit, 20 grit, 36 grit, 60 grit, 80 grit, with a final polishing/blending of 100 grit with my pole sander. I vacuumed in between every single round of sanding. I mention that I did 20 grit twice because I tried to use the 20 grit for more than what I probably should have. The sandpaper that they sell to us regular joes isn't as high quality as what the pros can get, so I found the useful life on my very hard, very old finish to be right around 100-125sq ft. After a while, you begin to notice that the drum is losing its "bite". The pole sanding at the end was invaluable, as it allowed me to mostly blend the different sanding patterns between the edger and the drum. As far as time disbursement goes, I spent about half of my total sanding time with 20 grit on, it got quite a bit faster with each successive pass after that.Finishing: I didn't show any of the products that I used, but I used Bona Classicseal to seal in the floors, and Bona Traffic HD as my poly, satin sheen. On this subject, I did quite a bit of research. Bona used to only be available to pros, and from my research, it is the gold standard of water based polyurethane. I will be honest, I was very anxious laying it out as I did not lay it nearly as smooth as I could have. That being said, the leveling agent of it really lives up to the standard that they advertise. I definitely laid it too thin, so when I'm completely done with the house, I'll do a screen and recoat for a 3rd coat of poly.Problems: You can see that I had a spot with some moderate pet stains. This is part of the reason that I went with a sealer and no stain, as I wanted them to mostly disappear. In my hubris, I thought I could sand through that bigger dark stain with the edge sander, and created a low spot. The first coat of poly did not completely cure in that spot before I put down the second coat, hence the peeling that you see there. Just another reason to do my 3rd and final coat. Additionally, I had originally had water baseboard heat in the house, which I replaced with electric hvac. They had the copper pipe drilled through the floors, so I had to create plugs by shoving cotton balls down and filling with wood filler. I would rate myself 5/10 on that, as you can definitely tell that there used to be holes there, but it's up to the individual to decide how much they care.Costs: I had to rent the sanding equipment twice, because in classic Grains style, I underestimated the project and over estimated myself. IIRC, I said to the GF "I can sand this whole thing in 2/3 of a day, and finish that night/the next day". 40 Grains working hours later, I finally got to where it is today.Sander rentals: $250Sandpaper: $180Bona Sealer: $130(65 per gallon, just shy of 2 gallons)Bona Traffice HD: $650(120-130/gallon, 5 gallons)Total Cost: $1210, or $1.86/sq ftQuotes that I got for refinishing it were $3/sq ft for using minwax, $4.35 for using Bona.Final impressions: I want to do it again. It sounds stupid, because I had a pretty sore back from doing this. That being said, I genuinely enjoyed the process. There is something cathartic about taking something ugly, and making it beautiful. I smiled ear to ear when I came back to the house after the first coat of poly dried. via /r/DIY https://ift.tt/2RVQuO6
