Just a Small Project

We didn't start small with our first remodeling project.

The house had hardwood floors in the entry and adjoining dining room.  The family room had beige carpet, always my favorite (said with much sarcasm but with two kids carpet never stays beige in my world).  The kitchen sported whitish/beigeish tile with grout that was very light.  Again, grout in my kitchen especially never stays white.  Given our fondness for hardwood and DIY projects, we decided to rip out the carpet and tile and put in new unfinished hardwood.  We could strip the existing hardwood and finish it all at the same time.  And we could do it all in the 10 days between our closing date and the new tenant moving into our rental house.  Easy peasy lemon squeezey as my 7 year old says.

Oh, the best laid plans.

It started off great.  Until the Hubs discovered a sheet of linoleum under all that tile.  And approximately 10,000 nails through the linoleum that had to be pulled up.  He even broke an indestructible crowbar pulling up all that tile.

And he has some amazing friends who stayed up into the wee hours of the night to help lay some of our beautiful new hardwood.  They did an amazing job!

This helper didn't get to stay up into the wee hours but I think he's the cutest!

You can see the existing hardwood through the doorways and our new unfinished going in.

The stripping of the existing finish wasn't quite as easy as anticipated until we rented the second big floor sander.  Even Andrew got in on that action!  

Grace however was less than impressed with the noise of the sander and hammer.

Then it was time to stain and seal the new gorgeous floor.  That's when it went horribly wrong.  We plan to replace all the upstairs carpet with hardwood as well and thought we had a brilliant plan to install pre-finished hardwood upstairs.  So, we picked out a gorgeous chocolate brown floor that would look great with soft white trim and warm walls.  Again, the best laid plans.

This is the dye stain that the oh so helpful Sherwin Williams guy claimed we needed to match the finish we liked.  This is an in-progress shot of the first step.  There was a reddish toned wiping stain to go over the top after this dried completely.  The problem?  When it dried, it was BLACK!  It turned my love open family room/kitchen into a cave.  I hated it.

So, we quickly came up with Plan B.  One that involved moving everything into the upstairs, basement and garage.  A plan that led to renting no less than four additional sanders.  That's in addition to the 3 sanders we had already rented.  Because apparently newbie DIYers and dye stain don't mix well.  When they say deep penetrating, they mean it.  That stuff did not come up without a fight.  In fact it didn't come up 100%.  But we added a medium, neutral brown stain on top and we love it.  It's a little rustic, hides dirt well and transitions seamlessly between the new and old hardwood.

Did I mention that we couldn't move our new appliance into the house until the floor was finished?  I didn't?  Probably because I'm still traumatized by the two weeks we spent without a single kitchen appliance.  The only thing that saved my sanity was a 20 year old fridge we've stuck out in the garage of our last 4 houses  It's now my best friend.

We ate meals like this:

The kids thought it was a grand adventure.  Of course, being able to spend a week at my sister's house while we sanded, refinished and sealed was the best part for them.  And, really, the reason we made this trek back to the Midwest.  The kids had a blast playing with their sweet cousin and were relatively oblivious to the chaos going on in their new home.

It ended up taking about three times longer than we first anticipated, which we're discovering may be a trend for projects in this house.  But we did it!  And I still think it will look great with our soft white trim and new wall paint...