DIY Floor Refinishing

I had mentioned that our dining room floor was a nightmare. 

 

After removing this icky carpet...

 

 

I found this...

 

And quickly went into a panic.

 

It is typical in my house for me to announce I am going to do something and for my husband to tell me what a horrible idea he thinks it is.  This happens to be one of those such things.

 

However, I did have reasonable expectations that this would go okay.  I had removed all of the rest of the carpeting from the house and the wood was fine.  Not perfect but certainly better than someone else's dirty old carpet.

 

I tried everything to remove this black padding that was glued to the floor.

 

I scrubbed.

 

I Googled.

 

And scrubbed.

 

And Googled.

 

I tried to remove it with a putty knife.

 

Nothing worked and my Google searches were coming up empty!

 

And finally after two days of sitting in the middle of this stinky filth... it dawned on me.

 

Stripper!

 

How had I not thought of this sooner?!

 

So I loaded up and headed to the hardware store.

 

(Admittedly, this should have been my first stop.)

 

While I was there looking for furniture stripper, I found this...

 

 

 

Perfect!

 

And rented this...

 

 

Really, why didn't I come here first?!

 

When I got home I liberally applied the adhesive remover to the entire floor.  The black padding and adhesive started to bubble immediately and was all removed within a half hour.

 

 

 

Really... I sat there for two days, and this was all it took.

 

After letting the floor dry I began sanding and within a few hours was finished.

 

I had thought long and hard about 15 min. while I was in the store about how I wanted to finish the floor. 

 

The floor is the original to the home, small planked, oak wood floor.  Normally,  you do not see these types of floors stained.  But... I really do not care for oak all that much.  So I decided I was going to stain my floor.

 

I chose a dark redish color and began applying with old rags.

 

 

After the first coat I decided I needed to go a little darker so I applied a second.

 

 

After the second coat of stain it was time to begin sealing the floor.

 

I applied 4 coats of floor polyurethane over several days to the floor, gently sanding the floor in between coats with steal wool and cleaning with a tac cloth to remove any debris.

(Each coat of polyurethane must dry for 8 hours before the next coat can be applied.)

 

The final result... a beautiful restored wood floor.