These past few weeks we have been very busy at our new home! This weekend was quite a productive one - we started working on the hardwood floors. My amazing husband spent 11 hours sanding the floors on Saturday, plus more on Sunday!
To begin the floors, we made sure that all of the staples, etc., were gone after removing the carpet. Once all of the carpet tack strips were pulled up, and the staples were all removed, we picked a weekend to rent the sander. We rented an oscillating sander instead of a belt sander, since we had heard some horror stories about the belt sanders and floors that looked like the waves of the ocean. We used 20 grit sandpaper to start, and my husband worked his way back and forth very very very slowly across each floor. I conveniently went to a baby shower at this point. :-)
So far, we've made it through the first pass with the coarse sandpaper and got the majority of the stain off. At some points, the stain didn't come up completely, so I went across these areas with our palm sander. We still have both the medium and the fine sandpaper to go (next weekend), and we need to do the edges and small spots that we missed with the palm sander. The dining room also has stains still showing, so we'll need to work on that by possibly using some bleach to see if we can get some out, and then sanding the rest out.
We also rented a small edger sander this weekend, but found that our palm sander did a better job with 50 grit paper than the edger did. The edger was very difficult to control, and took off a bit more than we wanted. We probably won't rent that again next weekend, we'll just rely on the large oscillating sander and the small palm sander.
On Sunday, my parents came over for a little picnic in our backyard - the weather turned out to be great! My mom also brought with her some low evergreens and hostas, and we were able to do some landscaping out front. The neighbors "just happened" to be working on their landscaping next door, and had a lot of extra dirt which they graciously gave us to fill in our gardens! I'm so thankful for wonderful parents to help with such a big job, on Mother's Day none-the-less, and for awesome neighbors who are willing to give us their dirt! :-)
Here is the updated exterior photo:
(Before is on top, current is on the bottom)
And here are some more shots - notice the new light and painted mailbox by the door! And don't you just love the pink respirator? :-)
Here's hoping your weekend was just as productive as ours was... but I also hope that your muscles aren't as sore as ours are!
To begin the floors, we made sure that all of the staples, etc., were gone after removing the carpet. Once all of the carpet tack strips were pulled up, and the staples were all removed, we picked a weekend to rent the sander. We rented an oscillating sander instead of a belt sander, since we had heard some horror stories about the belt sanders and floors that looked like the waves of the ocean. We used 20 grit sandpaper to start, and my husband worked his way back and forth very very very slowly across each floor. I conveniently went to a baby shower at this point. :-)
So far, we've made it through the first pass with the coarse sandpaper and got the majority of the stain off. At some points, the stain didn't come up completely, so I went across these areas with our palm sander. We still have both the medium and the fine sandpaper to go (next weekend), and we need to do the edges and small spots that we missed with the palm sander. The dining room also has stains still showing, so we'll need to work on that by possibly using some bleach to see if we can get some out, and then sanding the rest out.
We also rented a small edger sander this weekend, but found that our palm sander did a better job with 50 grit paper than the edger did. The edger was very difficult to control, and took off a bit more than we wanted. We probably won't rent that again next weekend, we'll just rely on the large oscillating sander and the small palm sander.
On Sunday, my parents came over for a little picnic in our backyard - the weather turned out to be great! My mom also brought with her some low evergreens and hostas, and we were able to do some landscaping out front. The neighbors "just happened" to be working on their landscaping next door, and had a lot of extra dirt which they graciously gave us to fill in our gardens! I'm so thankful for wonderful parents to help with such a big job, on Mother's Day none-the-less, and for awesome neighbors who are willing to give us their dirt! :-)
Here is the updated exterior photo:
(Before is on top, current is on the bottom)
And here are some more shots - notice the new light and painted mailbox by the door! And don't you just love the pink respirator? :-)
Here's hoping your weekend was just as productive as ours was... but I also hope that your muscles aren't as sore as ours are!
3 comments:
You have a beautiful home. Great job!
oh, i am so behind on info - congrats on the house, and beautiful floors!!! yay!!!
Wow...lots of work! =) Jared looks like he's having fun...I'll pass on the sore muscles though!
What a blessing to have a wonderful family and nice neighbors! The place is looking good outside too! Like the greener grass. =)
Have a great week!
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