Our new floors

Hey! Kevin here. After a week at the in-laws, I came home last Friday to check out the floors and air out the house a bit before the momma-to-be came home. As soon as I opened the door, I started crying... and coughing...and gasping for precious air. Wow what strong fumes! It was like walking into my first gas chamber on Fort Benning 10 years ago. I was so not prepared for the strength of these fumes!

I held my breath, closed my eyes and scrambled around the house to open any doors and windows I could find during short sprints around the gas chamber broken up by gasps for fresh air on the back porch.

After the fumes dissipated enough to allow me to walk around with my eyes open, I checked out the floors. We're pretty happy with the results. We knew a few of the stains would remain; these are, after all, 84 year old floors. The stains look nothing like before so we're pleased. Here are a few before-and-after pics.

The living room before:


The living room refinished:


Our bedroom before:


Our bedroom refinished:

The bedrooms were in pretty good shape already. They're even better now!

Me pulling up carpet in the hallway:


The hallway with no carpet and no tiles:


The refinished hallway:

I spent most of the summer in the hallway. When I first ripped up the carpet I was greeted with ugly yellow tile. I panicked and thought the wood floors in the hall had been replaced with these tiles. After a minute or two of with a hallway of ugly yellow tiles, I pulled one up and saw hardwood. (whew) The tiles were only sticky tiles and had been hammered on top of the floors. I'm sure somebody had a reason to nail down sticky tiles at one point in the house's history, but wow what a pain-in the ass project to undo. Between pulling up the carpet, the tack strips, the staples, the tiles, the glue residue and sinking the nails, I'm sure I spent well over 20 hours prepping the hallway to be refinished. Yay- it turned out good!