Refinishing Hardwood Floors

The 'BEFORE' floor
Oh, and that's Bridger, after a brushing of just one side!

This is the only photo I could find of the schoolroom, carpeted. While family was here over my birthday, they wanted to help with a job. What a better job than pulling up that old carpet and cleaning the floors underneath! Simple project, huh!

 Except that both my husband and I had forgotten that there wasn't a beautiful floor under the carpet, there was linoleum that the former owners had put in over their maple floors. Oh yeah... that's why we carpeted it 20 years ago!

And here's the 'lovely' wood-grain linoleum which they had purchased and installed to cover their maple floors. Huh???  Strange but true.

And here's the icky floor after my husband had painstakingly scraped the linoleum backing off! By now the helpers had all gone home. :-(

 Moving all the furniture to one side

Moving the books to the livingroom

The other half is behind the camera.

 The amazing man who ended up doing this all by himself...

and never once complained.

The new maple flooring we purchased from the Amish man near Westby, because he made 8' lengths for us. (Have you tried to purchase 8' lengths of maple at a home-improvement store lately? It only comes in very short pieces.) We needed that additional flooring to patch in where the original walls had been.

 Everything's patched perfectly and ready to be sanded.

 This is the beautiful sanded floor, and that's after my husband had worked with three different sanders, two of which were not adequate. Patience is that man's middle name, possibly because he's a middle child. Oh wait! I'm a middle child too...

The AFTER photo

 ...the photo I took after the floors had been stained and the 5th coat of sealer had been carefully applied. He continued with 3 additional coats after that. So adding the schoolroom to the entry (which we've never yet used as an entry), he refinished a little more than 400 sq. feet!

I love it!

SO much work went into getting from the Before to the After.

Kevin's attitude? 'It's an only-once-in-20 years job.' 

Thank goodness.