Floors are Finished!

Lots to share since my last post!   

DH and I have been burning the midnight oil trying to get the floors on the second level refinished with enough time for them to cure before the furniture moves in next week.  Tonight was the earliest night this week were we left the house by 6 pm and off to the Home Depot to buy more paint by 7:15 pm.   As we walked in we found out that they close at 8 pm so had 15 minutes to rush around to buy the essentials before they closed.    I got the 2 gallons of paint I needed for tomorrow...so life is good!   Latest night we were home by 12:30…Hubby thought I was just crazy but I was NOT leaving until the stain was on the floor because there was just no way I could face coming back the next morning to have to wear the respirator and hot disgusting rubber gloves.  My hands were beyond prune like.   This made the days when I was a kid and stayed in the tub too long look like nothing…my palms were even wrinkly and I could dump the sweat out of the gloves…GROSS!

I am very happy to report now tho that the floors are FINISHED!!!   They turned out darker than I had expected form the 2"x2" sample they have at Home Depot but I still really like them.  I picked Chocolate as the stain colour, I thought that suited me.  :-)   It turns out chocolate should read "Dark" Chocolate rather than what my brain registered as "Milk" Chocolate.  

In the series of pictures below you can see the stages that took a full week to complete…from carpet remove which I posted in a previous blog post to tonights post with the final sanding and finish coat complete.   DH and I stopped on our way back form Home Depot tonight to have one last look to see how they turned out now that they are dry enough for light foot traffic.   In the dark with the lights the wood grain highlights are fantastic and I am so pleased that we decided to put in the sweat equity because I know they have already increased the value of the house over that nasty carpeting from a week ago.

This is me sanding…this was the easy sanding part using the drum sander.   I think I put on about 10K of walking tho with the number of passes and the square footage that was sanded.   

I missed getting pictures of the brutal sanding of the edging.   You can see form the picture above that the last 6 inches against the walls still needed the paint removed.   I seriously thought my back was going to be permanently damaged from holding on to that little devil of a hand sander.   It was a power house and worked great but I totally understand why the guy at Home Depot said, "Make sure you have a good hold on this unit when you flick the switch on with your thumb."  This is the floors with the edging completed.

And Tad-Daaa!!   Here are the finished floors.   I think they look fantastic.   The pictures really don't do them justice as they look black and they are not really this dark in person.

In other news at the house we had a lovely visit from Karen and Ben.   Thank you for the delicious house warming home baking!  Always love fresh baking and they fuelled the late nights.  Cheers!

Once again I need to give credit to my parents for coming out this week and helping with all the things my brain had planned to do but like normal for me I never estimate enough time to get things done!   (I think I have this same issue when I go to retreat…10 projects on the list but just a fraction of them completed!)   

My Dad and Mom spent a day ripping out a tree that had grown very large right beside the house.   I am talking within 6" of the foundation wall.  There was also a grape ivy that had grown all along the wall of the garage that was so heavy that it was ripping the eaves trough off the roof!   It's now all gone and the light that is now able to get into the living room and the spare room (AKA Heather's room) is terrific.   We had thought the living room was rather dark but not anymore.

My Mom has been busy cleaning and painting.   Dishwasher is now clean…not sure how it actually cleaned dishes when she had to scrape guck out of it using a knife.

Mom painted the living room...she's going to kill me for putting this pic of her up on my blog but DH and I have appreciated the help so much.   We could never have been ready to move in in 2 weeks without the help of her and my Dad.

I painted the kitchen between coats on the floor upstairs.   It's a spring yellow.   I wanted cheerful and I think it was achieved here.   

With the living room and kitchen painted they both look really fresh and clean.   (*Clean - it's a miracle*)   Still need to add the accent colour to the living room fire place and office off the living room.

I think I will indulge myself in the luxury of a ride on Baby Izzy tomorrow before breakfast…my first this week!   I've missed the saddle but the work at the farm has been very rewarding.

But lastly, I need to sign off tonight with a photo of the project supervisor.   It was hot today so supervision stayed in the coolest spot in the house and basically made for road blocks and detours throughout the day.