Our kitchen is scheduled to begin install on Monday at 8am, so it was crunch time to get these floors done. We didn't have a second to waste. I don't even think I can write all the issues we've run into in the last couple days, but I'll try!
We loved the natural age and patina of the old barn boards so we decided to initially do a light sand (120 grit sand paper with orbital sander) over the entire floor before vacuuming and applying the polyurethane.
It was a lot of work. We sanded, vacuumed, vacuumed again and mopped, mopped again. The floors looked great!!
Kitten approved!
Then we applied the polyurethane and HATED them!! They turned out so dark, and the light pieces were so stark. We went to bed hoping for the best... But they still looked awful in the morning.
So we sanded them again. But first we had to pick up some coarser sand paper. We also picked up 10 gallons of a different polyurethane because we used way more than we thought we would and the stuff we started with could only be purchased in Kitchener or Toronto and we didn't have time for that!
We started resanding with 80 grit until the paper kept gumming up. We made it 1 full length of the "big room" using 2 pieces of sand paper. And each piece of sand paper for this machine is $10, as Jake would remind us often ;)
So Jake just did 1 quick pass using 120 grit again and it seemed to be ok.
We made an executive decision to stain the light pieces in hopes of having them blend in a bit more. I ran up to the local hardware store, where they actually know us by name now, and grabbed a light stain. I knew that I didn't want them to match exactly, just something to age them a bit more. But this put us back by a full day.
They looked good! We were so thankful that Jake's dad and friend came to help because it turned out to be a big job. We went to bed exhausted but happy that things were back on track and we'd still be able to get 3 coats of polyurethane on before Monday morning.
At 3am I got up to pee and to my surprise, the stain was still wet. What the hell?! It had been 6 hours! We were planning on getting up early and putting the 2nd coat of polyurethane on so I felt kind of panicked. I grabbed some paper towel and started scrubbing the floors hoping they'd dry some but it was like a waxy finish and the paper towel kept sticking. Nightmare!!! Jake also came up to pee to find me on my hands and knees scrubbing.
After an hour and a half of dealing with this mess, we gave up.
Before going back to bed at 5am Jake had the brilliant idea of reading the can... Here's a lesson for EVERYONE, read the F$*#%! directions!! In giant font, it said not to let the stain sit for more than 5 minutes and to wipe dry. We did not do this. We slopped it on thick and left it to sit for a good 6 hours. Oops. Big oops. After reading countless forums and blogs for possible solutions, we decided to try using paint thinner. I set my alarm for when the hardware store opened and we went back to bed.
With our fingers crossed we brushed on some newly acquired paint thinner and started wiping away. To our surprised, IT WORKED!!!
It took us the majority of the day, but we got the sticky waxy texture off hundreds of square feet of stained floor.
Things were finally starting to look up.
Being that we were now 1 and 3/4 days behind schedule we didn't want to take any more chances of messing things up so we decided to give the floors one more quick sand.
Then I carefully vacuumed every last speck of dust and we FINALLY put our second coat of polyurethane on.
We have redeemed ourselves!! The floors look AMAZING!!! We are once again thrilled with our floors!
The floors are still wet here. I rolled myself out the door and snapped a pic before closing the door. The polyurethane we went with is actually a matte finish so it will be interesting to see how it looks in the morning. I'm kind of nervous...
Here's a comparison of 1st vs 2nd coat. Huge improvement!
Wish us luck for the morning!!!
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