When we were looking at the house the curiosity of what was under the ugly green carpet was something I thought about often. We were told by the Realtors that hardwood floors should be throughout the house but the condition was unknown. So the moment we got the keys and could get in the house we started to tear up the carpet(and 4 layers of linoleum flooring in the living and dining room). We found beautiful toung in groove floors.. in the 1920's our living room was once a general store. When we had all the old flooring pulled up you could see the out line of where display cases, cash registers, and shelves once stood. It was so neat to see some of the houses history with our own eyes! We decided to refinish the floors ourselves and with the help of my dad, father in law, and my sisters boyfriend we got started!
After owning the house for a few hours we started to pull up the carpet...
and the linoleum that was made to look like carpet.
Here is one of the outlines of a display case!
We also had to pull up staples, scrape glue, and sink any nails that could catch on the sanders.
We rented two different types of sanders to refinish the floors. They claimed to be dust free but its just unavoidable. The bags did cut down on alot of the dust but I still had to sweep, sweep, and sweep some more!
Here is the hallway.. to get an idea of the layout of the house I'm standing in the bathroom doorway, the doorway to the living room is on the left, and the doorway ahead is to the dining room.
The steps were the hardest part because the carpet was glued directly to the wood. It took days to sand down to the bare floors.
We sanded the living room, hallway, and dining room in one day to keep renting costs down. For touch ups and sanding the stairs we used palm sanders we already had on hand. All the hard work was well worth it and saved us thousands in the end. I cant wait to show you the staining process!
To keep this post from getting any longer I'll write about the stain and sealing in a separate post :)
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