When we moved into Kirkland Avenue, we hired someone to refinish all of the hardwood floors in the house. They did a pretty good job but I always wondered if we could do just as good of a job ourselves.
We got to find out at Shorebrook. Going rate is about $2.50 per sq/ft. With almost 1,600 sqft of hardwoods that would equate to $4,000. Hoping to stretch our reno budget a bit further, we decided we could do it ourselves!
Paul rented a belt sander from Sunbelt and three edge sanders. Between the rental, sandpaper, stain and poly our total costs ended up being around $600 + a lot of sweat and time from friends.
It's two and a half weeks into the process and thanks to a lot of help from friends and a very patient husband, the floors are looking amazing. Paul just put on the third coat of poly and we're hoping it's the final coat.
P.S. We got Minwax stain in Provincial from Sherwin Williams during their 40% off sale.
P.P.S. If you want flawless floors without "character" then hire a professional. But I'm pretty damn proud of the work our crew of friends did and love the results we're seeing so far.
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| Hardwoods before they were patched and sanded down. |
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| You can really see the wear and tear in the hallway before the floors were sanded down. |
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| Our friends Nick and David helped Paul patch new oak into the areas where we removed the wall between the dining room and family room. |
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| It took a lot of work to get the floors sanded down. Since the 1950s some of the floors had developed ridges and other flaws that required a lot of TLC and elbow grease. |
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| After the final bit of sanding was completed...we finally got to see some smiles from Nick, Shaun and Paul. |
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| Then came the tough decision. Just to Poly or to stain. I wanted Jacobean (right) but we decided it was too dark and had a hit of green that we didn't like. In the end we went with Minwax Provincial. Thanks to everyone who voted in the poll! |
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| Here's a look at the master bedroom floor after the stain went on! Not too shabby for being newbies to this process. |
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| Here are the floors after the first coat of Poly went on. Nice and shiny but that quickly faded as the floors soaked it up pretty quickly. |
