The Stain Game
This post will serve two purposes. The first is to whine a little bit, but the second is to hopefully teach you how to do something that we just couldn’t pull off due to the extremely thorough nature of our house’s previous owner.
Long story short, we decided to attempt to refinish the floor in our third bedroom and after lots of research we learned that the process involves three simple steps. First you sand the heck out of your floor to remove the coat of poly that locks in the stain and protects the wood from water damage. Then you get a floor stain in a color that tickles your fancy and apply it in long strokes with the grain of the wood and wipe it with a rag to remove the excess. Then you coat the floor with clear wood-floor-specific polyurethane to lock in the rich new stain color and call it a day. It’s not rocket science, right?
So we decided to test the process out in one of our closets first. I sanded the heck out of the closet floor with a hand sander. I literally lost feeling in my hand from running the sander back and forth over the wood floor for what seemed like hours:
Then we applied the stain in long strokes with the grain of the wood. We carefully selected this specific stain to match the rich new wood floor in the kitchen and den that we love so much (check out the leftover den flooring sample in the pic for the color we were going for). We thought it would be the perfect shade once we wiped off the excess…
But this is what we were left with when we wiped the stain with a rag…
… it lifted all the color off the wood, leaving it the same light orange color that we started with. Boo!
It turns out that over the 50 years of owning the home, the previous owner applied coat after coat of polyurethane on the floors which yellowed over the years leaving that orange cast on the floor. It also makes it virtually impossible to sand through since there are so many layers of the stuff, so refinishing it ourselves is absolutely out of the question. We’re not exactly ready to bring in the experts and kick up buckets of poly dust so I guess we’ll stick with our current floor color for now. Oh well, at least we tried.
Hopefully someone else will be able to successfully refinish their floors thanks to these three easy steps. Then we could consider this entire experiment a victory regardless of our failure. So do tell us if it works for you… our fingers are crossed. But definitely test things out in an inconspicuous spot like a closet first.
(Post by Sherry)
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We only had 2 carpetted rooms when we bought our ‘75 house (don’t actually know the style …) 2 1/2 years ago and after we ripped up the carpet in the bedroom we figured we’d finish the floors ourselves, too. Knowing the project would take a while we kept putting it off until we heard about a local man who refinished floors as a side job. Once we found out what he charged (not a ton in the scheme of things) we decided it might be worth it to have someone with experience get it done. I was going to be away for a weekend so my sweet husband decided he could deal with sleeping on a mattress on the dining room floor for the couple days it would take for the floors to be done, so I got to miss all the work and come home to a gorgeous bedroom. After Walt told me it took 2 men (the guy and his helper) the better part of 6 hours to sand (with a professional sander and all their experience, mind you) and put down the first coat of poly, followed by several more hours work to put down the next 2 coats and finish up the room I was SO glad we had not attempted it ourselves. I think it was a little over $300 for our bedroom and our little hallway and it was worth every penny to us. I can’t imagine how long it would have taken us!! We ripped up the living room carpet last week (I love pulling those staples out of the floor!) and we’ll be giving our floor guy a call very soon.
I agree with Amie! I always look forward to reading your new posts!
I don’t think the hand sander will do the floor justice. Really need to rent one of the heavy duty sanders - to get past all the poly. Those look like great floors - I would’nt let them go to waste..
Hey my favorite Richmonders,
At our house in Richmond, we hired an amazing gentleman to redo our floors (before we moved in.) His last name is SANDERS. Imagine that! And his business card shows a photo of a shiny floor and his “tagline” is: Jesus Shines From Within.
Quirky, maybe. But he is incredibly fast, good and affordable. Let me know if you decide to throw in the sanders and hire a professional. I’ll find his info for you.
Our ‘51 Cape Cod bungalow has the same thing: lots o’ orangey poly on the wood floors in our hallway and 2 main-floor bedrooms. We’ve decided to live with it for the time being.
Agreeing with Eric - the hand sander won’t do it. And thanks KK for the tip about Mr. Sanders - I’ll never forget his name!
Hey everyone,
Yeah, we knew going into it that the hand sander might not get ‘er done, but still couldn’t believe that the poly was so thick. The idea of hiring a professional always appeals to us- especially since we gave it the ‘ol college try and couldn’t make any headway. The original yellowed hardwood floors cover the majority of our house (the living/dining room, hallway, and three bedrooms) so it’s a pretty big job to clear out all that furniture and kick up all that dust so we’re putting the project on hold for now. I think since we lived with chaos and dust for four months when we redid our kitchen fairly recently, we’re just not ready to go back to that just yet. But give us time and we’ll definitely come around. And you know we’ll write all about the process when we finally make it happen. Thanks for all the tips!
Smooches,
Sherry
Sherry,
Although this may not be on your radar sceen anytime soon, I must note that your concern about the poly dust will quadruple if you decide to expand your little threesome (with a little human). Neither during pregnancy nor with a little one in the home will you feel any better about kicking up poly dust (says the girl who, while pregnant with second child, resided in her basement with husband and 2-yr-old during an extensive home renovation — roof ripped off, second floor added, inhaling poly dust +). In any case, if you ever do plan to hire someone for this project, my recommendation is to do it before you even cross over into that family-planning stage. Oh yes, not to mention that moving all of the furniture out doesn’t get any easier at that stage either. How’s that for completely unsolicited advice reaching the far boundaries of relevancy to your post? ;-)
Have become addicted to your blog & now see new possibilities in our own home. Thank you both for the inspiration. Ahh - but to have a fraction of the energy - and kid-free time - that you two have to actually accomplish these “swoon-worthy” projects!
Ah Jean, how right you are. We always remind ourselves that everything we do around the house is infinitely easier because we don’t have little ones yet. And they are on the agenda- although not in the very near future. So thankfully we have a bit of time to build up our dust tolerance and our bank accounts and then we’ll definitely call in the pros. Stay tuned…
xo,
Sherry
I know this post is eons old in blog world, but having refinished my own floors I feel compelled to comment anyway. :)
If you’re truly handy and feel comfortable using the big floor sanders and edgers, you can absolutely do this job yourself. It does take time and planning though. Our apartment is nearly 100 years old with all of the accompanying layers of poly on the floor (parquet no less). I believe it took us a full day to sand about 700-800 sf. We then cleaned everything up, went over it with mineral spirits (picks up lefter over dust) and put down the first coat of water based satin finish poly and sealed up the rooms to prevent to much dust settling on the wet surface. 2nd coat went on 24 hrs later - sealed rooms again. This project was slightly easier for us since we weren’t living in the apartment at the time.
Old floor/sanded floor
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/90/208056101_3c6a5a65b0.jpg?v=0
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/90/208056180_4c95fe9571.jpg?v=0
Finished floor (no staining, this is the natural color of the sealed wood):
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/75/208056246_0aa46e1ec6.jpg?v=0
It’s been fun reading through your renos. Good luck with future projects!
Thanks so much for the pics and the inspiration, HSP! We’re totally enthused about the floor project and will hopefully work up the energy (and the brainpower) to somehow cram all the furniture in the half of the house that needs to be refinished into the other half of our home. Hope it fits! It might be a while, but we’re so grateful for your encouragement. Thanks again for the tips and the pics!
xo,
Sherry
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We bought our ‘55 ranch (our first owned home) in Ventura, Ca. in June of last year. I’m currently putting most of our budget into a bathroom remodel (which currently has carpet tiles, stubborn vanity drawers, faux marble stuff as a shower surround) and thought of doing the floors ourselves. Wrong! They have a very thick coating of poly as well. We’ll have to live with this (prev. owner slapped down some Pergo & carpet) until we have enough cash to pull off a professional refinisher!
Just wanted to add…I love your blog very much. I am a stay-at-home mommy who loves art & design and read a selection of blogs every morning with my coffee. I’m always eager to read your new posts! I love your aesthetic!