Almost there!

I haven't posted since August but wow we have done a lot of work to the house. We just have a small list of jobs left to do. Since August, we have finished all four bedrooms upstairs as well as the bathroom (besides painting some trim) and the upstairs hallway. I'm not going to post pictures of the finished products quite yet though. I will however share with you what we have been working on this week. 

As you might remember, the downstairs hallway had a bathroom in it including a bathtub tucked in under the stairs. When Dad pulled the bathtub up we discovered that the hardwood that had been in the rest of the hallway was missing. Thankfully, dad had a stockpile of maple hardwood flooring left over from an old job he did years ago.  The problem was it wasn't the same type of wood and so it obviously looked different.  Can you see it? 

 

Last weekend Dad inquired about renting a floor sander to sand the hallway and one of the living room floors but was told there was a waiting list. Well we didn't want to wait so we got out the trusty old palm sander. Have you ever sanded something with a palm sander?  It really is meant for small jobs. It took a long long time. Dad and I would come in for an hour here and there the last 5 days and did what we could. I gotta say my shoulders did not like the repetitive movements. But it saved us a ton of money doing it ourselves. Which reminds me of a commercial I heard on the radio today. It was a travel commercial and the announcer said "this is the sound of sand on your tropical vacation" then another voice saying "ow its hot!"  Then the announcer says "with our low prices you will be saying this!" "Ow ow but I saved money!"  Haha. I laughed at it this morning as we complained about how sore our knees were. Anyway originally we were going to sand the floor down and then put some polyurethane over top. Leaving it the same color. But the color contrast was so much that we began entertaining the idea of staining it. Here's where we ran into trouble. Different types of wood take stains differently. So I took a scrap piece of each type of wood to the paint and stain experts at the local hardware store. There we tested a few different stains. We tried lighter colors first but the difference between the two was so different. Then the genius woman suggested going with a darker stain. She showed me one called Kona. It's a nice dark stain with some warm undertones which we needed to go along side the reddish yellow stained trim.   She said the darker you go, the harder it is to see the different types of wood. So we decided to take the leap and stain the floor dark. I am partial to dark stains anyway so I was thrilled!  This morning I let the kids have a break from school and went over to the house bright and early. I even beat my dad there which has never happened. Took us just over an hour but the downstairs hallway has been transformed. Tomorrow we start the polyurethane process. Here's a few pictures for a glimpse of our work.  

 

The difference between the sanded floor and the stained floor. 

 The finished result 

 I love the contrast between the light stairs and the dark floor!

It's hard to see in this picture because I was leaning over the stairs  but you can't really see where the original hardwood ends and the maple hardwood begins. 

So there you have it. A new post!  So I will put together before and after pictures and post them. But for now, I'm keeping the house a secret as I have a special reveal idea for those followers who are local!