Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Refinishing the upstairs hardwoods

Ever since we refinished our stairs last year, the plan was to continue that sexy Espresso stain onto the upstairs hardwoods. We chose this week to work on this project, which is pretty bad timing as I just completed the Art Room and Dressing Room a couple months ago, and now all the trim and doors have to be repainted.  Story of my life!  We decided to refinish the hallways, master closet, art room and dressing room, leaving the three largest bedrooms to be done later on.  The first thing we did was take all of the stuff out of those rooms and pile it into the other bedrooms.  The mess is intense, but we're sleeping on a mattress in the living room, anyway.  It's like camping, only crappy.
The second task was to use painters plastic to wrap up all our vents, wall fixtures and doorways.  This took awhile, but is very necessary.  I covered all the walls in the art room because I didn't want that dust all over my flat-finish navy walls.  Don't ever choose ultra flat paint for dark walls, everything shows!
Doesn't the capiz light look...uh...interesting with the plastic? ha
And I got the frosted door I've always wanted, at least for a day...
Towels were shoved under the doorways to the remaining bedrooms.  When we were done with the large orbital sander, we opened the doors and removed the towels and plastic to sand the thresholds with the hand sander.  I recommend using an orbital because they are more forgiving than a drum sander.  See my full 'how-to' on refinishing floors here.  We had a couple helpers that allowed us to get everything sanded in about 6 hours!
The speed of their sanding was the only reason I approved a beer break.  Har har.   Thanks, Frank and JR!
It worked to our advantage that most of the poly was already rubbed off the floors.  The orbital sanding was quick, this photo was about 15 minutes into the sanding of this room, I almost didn't make it up there in time to snap a 'during' picture!
At the end of the day, it was looking like this:
And despite all our prep, our stairs still looked like this!
The stain saga is up next!

22 comments:

  1. Ugh...I am so dreading this in my home, but I know it would be worth it. Can't wait to see the reveal!

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  2. LMAO at the commentary on your light fixture!

    -Kim

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  3. I am exhausted just reading that! That is the reason the floors in the back of our house are still unfinished (they're partially sanded and will probably remain that way). Kudos to you! I can't wait until the reveal. And just out of curiousity, how many bedrooms to you have?! I have a feeling I'm going to be jealous knowing the answer!

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  4. After reading this, I know that you would understand why I tore apart my house in order to get the popcorn off of the ceilings. The details do make big differences!

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  5. Though I do love the deep brown stain you're applying to your floors... I think I really love the natural look!

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  6. It's so cool to see the process of taping sanding etc...so much work! We have a small house so, the n 'plan' is to do ours all at once, which means stsying in a hotel or at my sis's I hope we can get started on it this spring

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  7. Kristina, I totally love the natual look, too! If we hadn't already done the stairs dark, we would be leaving them with just the coats of poly.

    Karrie, we have five bedrooms, but the art room really isn't 'officially' one, since you can't put a bed in it.

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  8. I need to do my floors after the kitchen is done. I want to cry just thinking about it!

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  9. Wow, that is such a lot of preparation. As always I am so impressed with all the work you guys get done! xx

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  10. I can't wait to see the "after". I can't believe how fast you work!

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  11. I am so impressed that you are taking this on yourself....and all that prep work, wow. I can't wait to see it all come together!

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  12. Kudos for doing this yourselves. A messy job but so rewarding.

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  13. Come do my house next! You have it down to a science! We'll be stumbling through round 2 of refinishing this weekend. Fun stuff :) Loving your tutorials!

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  14. please come to my house too when you're done.... we have lots of beer...

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  15. Taping up plastic looks like it was the hardest part of this project!!! The floors look great ... now on to staining.

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  16. OMG! The plastic looks like it was ridiculous! I can't wait to see the finished product. Love the Iowa sweatshirt too! Go Hawks!

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  17. Sounds like SO much work but I'm sure it'll be worth it in the end. I need a nap now from reading this!

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  18. You are brave and my hero. Wow - what a lot of hard work but I know it's going to be so worth it. I can't wait to see more. :)

    Roeshel

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  19. I'd say a beer break was in order. You two are incredible with your projects! Can I confess that I start to get lazy? But you remind me how important it is to not cut any curtains. Your house is too fabulous for words. Can't wait to see how it all looks with those gorgeous espresso floors!

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  20. Ha! Definitely meant 'corners' and not curtains. I might have some stress issues if I was cutting curtains...

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  21. Hi Sara, Just wanted to let you know that I have an award for you. You can stop by my blog to collect it. Have a great weekend! xx

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  22. I knew I'd be jealous! And sure enough I am!

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Thanks so much for reading....your comments mean a lot to me!
Sara