The Floor is done!
The fact that it’s done is probably the best thing about it. We pretty much knew from the beginning that the floor was pretty beat up. There were a lot of stains that I hoped we would be able to sand out, but in the end they were all full depth and not going anywhere. I ended up going pretty slow with the drum sander to try and get through all the old layers, and since I’m not a pro we have a little of the washboard effect. If I were to do it again, I may try an orbital instead of the drum sander.
Even though it’s not perfect, we still like it though. It’s way better than what we had before and of course you get what you pay for. We spent around $0.90 a square foot, most of which was in the finish. Our stain was a Minwax oil based, natural color. I really like all the color variation we got from the different shades of boards. I’m not usually an oak fan, but I actually like it. We then used a water based polyurethane from Glitsa that was expensive but very easy to work with. We’ll see how well it holds up. I wouldn’t hesitate may to do it again on a floor that was in real rough shape like ours, but if I had a real nice floor to begin with, I might think harder about just calling a professional.
Cost for 800 square feet; $600 for repair boards, stain, polyurethane and applicator pads. $140 for sander rental and sandpaper.
It took me about 14 hours of sanding and about 4 hours to apply the stain and polyurethane.
More pics below.
