Why I Haven’t Blogged for Two Weeks

The first week—I just blogged several entries (all with fudged dates, of course), so nothing to blog.

The second week—I was doing a New Project.

And I love it! Now that it’s done.

I refinished our kitchen floor. We’ve lived here 7 1/2 years and I’ve never taken care of our wood floor. It’s not a great floor at its best, but I was beginning to loathe the floor. Whatever finish it originally had was all but worn off except around the edges and under the refrigerator. So not only was it ugly, but it was so difficult to clean. Berry juices, particularly, could not be scrubbed out. Good Ol’ “Not Me” used a black pen on the floor and that would come off, either.

Something had to be done.

So last Monday and Tuesday nights, after the kids had gone to bed, I got out the sander—the small 5” diameter one that I usually love. Since most of the finish was already worn off, I just needed to use the 80 grit around the edges and under a few of the less used areas. The next night, I used 150 then 220 on the entire floor. It was so smooth. Ugly. But smooth.

This is the floor after the sanding. It doesn’t look much different than before the sanding. (But juice and pen stains had disappeared!)

Then I was eager to see if the Red Chestnut stain would look okay. I didn’t condition this under-the-refrigerator space, so you can see the color didn’t come out evenly. But generally, I liked most of it.

Then I conditioned the floor and gave it two coats of stain. Oh, and my parents picked up Kyla and Piper Wednesday afternoon so I could tackle this during Wesley’s naps. Otherwise, this would have been impossible. It took some planning. The first polyurethane coat took more than 12 hours to dry, instead of the usual 4, probably due to the damp. But eventually I got three coats on. I always use an oil-base because I love how it makes the wood glow.

This is the final result.

I can’t stress enough that this is a very amateurish job, but it still looks terrific. AND, more importantly, it is a dream to clean.

Cost: almost $85. Includes one can wood conditioner, one can Red Chestnut stain, 220 grit sandpaper for the palm sander (I had plenty of the other grits), and the $45 gallon can of wood floor oil polyurethane, which I have about half left over.

Extra Labor Cost: The dust from the sanding got everywhere—the closed cupboards with the dishes and cookware, the curtains, the cobwebs, every conceivable surface upstairs, and it pretty much clogged our electric air filter.

Additional Cost: For all my hard work, I treated myself to a Shark Steam Cleaner-Mop at Costco now that I actually have the required “sealed surface” to use it on. Regular price: $95, but I had a $25 coupon.

Unexpected bonus: Hard labor and extremely limited access to the kitchen took off about half the baby pounds I’ve been wanting to lose!