my floor refurbish project - DIY Chatroom

Knucklez · 04-13-2008, 04:40 PM

if you like this project, you might like some of my others:

my shower project, denshield backerboard, tiled walls
my shower project, denshield backerboard, tiled walls

my toilet install, 90 year old home
my toilet install, 90 year old home

my floor refurbish project
my floor refurbish project

my kitchen reno - concrete countertops
my kitchen reno - complete remodel (with concrete countertop)

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these old floors are coming up on 100 years. in pretty rough shape.

found some more under a nasty pink shag rug.. looks like the entire 2nd floor of house are 6" wide pine plank..

wonder what they would look like refinished?

correction - "refurbished".. as they need to be stripped down first..

Knucklez · 04-13-2008, 04:46 PM

first i rented the square vibrator type sander.. that was a mistake. this machine is for refinishing floors.. i.e. to scrape off polyurethane and then to apply new stain..

however, this machine happened to work great for taking off the old linseed oil stain that was on the floor (dark brown floor in picture above). this stuff is really nasty.. it gums up when heated rather than just sanding off.. so your sand paper gets nickle size blotches of gummy hard oil stuff..

what reallys sux is that sand paper is expensive, and within 5 minutes one paper is no good because of the gummed up linseed oil! so.. i had one person using a chisel picking off the gummed tar stuff so that the paper could be re-used.

took a bit of effort.. but with 2 people we had a good rhythm going.

Knucklez · 04-13-2008, 04:46 PM

once all the linseed oil was removed...

what i needed was a heavy duty bad-boy capable of really grinding the floor...

this is the drum sander.. it uses circular sand paper..

Knucklez · 04-13-2008, 08:17 PM

here is a picture after the first pass with 20 grit sand paper.

now here is some advice.. when that drum sander hits the floor with 20 grit, it will take off like a rocket!! i wasn't prepared for this and almost lost my grip on the machine.

scary...

Knucklez · 04-13-2008, 08:21 PM

i put wax paper over all the recepticals because the dust was excessive.

then i did 40 grit, 60grit.. 80 grit..

here is a picture after 80 grit

Knucklez · 04-13-2008, 08:22 PM

after 100 grit, i thought it was pretty good.

i also snapped a picture of my best friend during this project... see? right there in the middle of the pic

Knucklez · 04-13-2008, 08:25 PM

before the stain goes on, we use minwax "pre-stain" stuff.. it says its ideal for pine beacuse pine absorbs stain really good and so you get a blotchy floor, as absorption rate may differ board to board..

so to stabilize this effect we pre-stain with well.. pre-stain.

i also tested a bit in the corner, and then some without the pre-stain and noticed a big difference. also its not that expensive, i think like $30 in prestain and i did the entire 2nd floor.

Knucklez · 04-13-2008, 08:27 PM

now it is time to stain.. we wanted a kind of mid range darkness type stain.. not too light, not too dark.

we tested "ipswitch" colour, and it came out DARK DARK DARK! wow.. tested it on the new board (see previous pictures) and it came out colour of ipswitch..

interesting... on 100 year old pine floor, the colour comes out WAY darker than on fresh cut pine.

time for plan B

Knucklez · 04-13-2008, 08:28 PM

tried some lighter tones.. the lightest is "natural" which is basically no stain at all. .. we ended up with the 3rd lightest stain choice there is. also a minwax product.

here's a pic of my lovely wife hand rubbing some stain

Knucklez · 04-13-2008, 08:29 PM

we also used a lamb wool lint free rag(s) to wipe away the excess and to help blend the colour so it doesn't look "streaky".

when we were satisfied with the stain, moved on to minwax polyurethane sealer - high gloss. we chose the "professional" blend only because it says you don't need to sand in between coats.

Knucklez · 04-13-2008, 08:31 PM

did 3 coats of the polyurethane.

in retrospect,.. should have sanded with 220 grit "pole sander" in between .. but that's what you get for following directions. this floor did not have "glass surface" that i thought we would get because of non-sanding. but its still look'n awesome!

Knucklez · 04-13-2008, 08:36 PM

getting a good brush was well worth it. picking brush hair out of the floor during the polyurethane coating would have been a pain.. glad we spend the extra bucks...

total:
- pain brush, $15
- stain applicators $ 5
- non lint rags $5
- rental of square sander for the day $50
- rental of drum sander for the day $50
- sand paper $150 (went through a lot of it!)
- pre stain $ 30
- stain $50
- polyurethane $75
- misc.

Total: $500

- skills learned priceless!

in fact.. we went on to do our main floor refinishing ourselves too (they are drying as i type this). this was oak strips, 2" wide. came out amazing, glass like surface, similar story as above but with far less work since we were only refinishing.

mark942 · 04-14-2008, 07:40 AM

kc5oh · 04-14-2008, 01:53 PM

Very nice!

Your floor turned out much better than mine. The stain I used stopped wiping up after awhile no matter how much I stirred and wiped.

Knucklez · 04-14-2008, 10:47 PM

thx for the comments

i know what you mean by not wiping up that well. i noticed an improvment in "wipe ability" by the use of the pre-stain. i think that stuff keeps the stain mostly on the surface which means you can hand rub it or wipe it more easily.