Remember
these old floorboards? We salvaged them from the house of some guy who was remodeling last winter, and stuck them in the garage until spring. The kids sorted them and pulled out all the old nails, and back into the garage they all went until just last week, when I finally got good and ready to put them in.
I didn't get a "before" shot, but we'd been living with a piece of cheap carpet over the sub-floor in the addition since it was built last fall. It was a huge blessing to stumble on to someone (via a craigslist wanted ad) who was tearing out some of the exact mid-century era strip oak flooring that runs throughout the rest of the house, which we were happy to take off his hands. Above you see Paul helping me with the cleaning up of sanding dust, after we had gotten all the boards installed. FYI, it took almost exactly 2,000 nails, top-nailed, to hold this down. And all those nail holes had to be spackled over.
I'm very proud to say I did the whole job almost entirely by myself, which is not too surprising if you know me, but really threw the sander-rental guys for a loop. They looked up and down all five feet and 115 pounds of me, baby on my hip and a car full of kids, and talked me out of getting the heavier-duty drum sander (which I really needed) and into a pad sander (which didn't do what I needed.) At the end of the day, i only had to get the new floor to look as bad as the job we did on the
old floor a few years ago, so it wasn't worth going back to the store to switch out for the sander I should have gotten in the first place.
I'm taking lots of pictures no, because as soon as I let the kids and dog back onto the floor today, it will never again look so clean and shiny. You can see the transition between the old and new- it really blends remarkably well!
Remember these old floorboards? We salvaged them from the house of some guy who was remodeling last winter, and stuck them in the garage until spring. The kids sorted them and pulled out all the old nails, and back into the garage they all went until just last week, when I finally got good and ready to put them in.
I didn't get a "before" shot, but we'd been living with a piece of cheap carpet over the sub-floor in the addition since it was built last fall. It was a huge blessing to stumble on to someone (via a craigslist wanted ad) who was tearing out some of the exact mid-century era strip oak flooring that runs throughout the rest of the house, which we were happy to take off his hands. Above you see Paul helping me with the cleaning up of sanding dust, after we had gotten all the boards installed. FYI, it took almost exactly 2,000 nails, top-nailed, to hold this down. And all those nail holes had to be spackled over.
I'm very proud to say I did the whole job almost entirely by myself, which is not too surprising if you know me, but really threw the sander-rental guys for a loop. They looked up and down all five feet and 115 pounds of me, baby on my hip and a car full of kids, and talked me out of getting the heavier-duty drum sander (which I really needed) and into a pad sander (which didn't do what I needed.) At the end of the day, i only had to get the new floor to look as bad as the job we did on the old floor a few years ago, so it wasn't worth going back to the store to switch out for the sander I should have gotten in the first place.
I'm taking lots of pictures no, because as soon as I let the kids and dog back onto the floor today, it will never again look so clean and shiny. You can see the transition between the old and new- it really blends remarkably well!
