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Category: gardening and old home restoration | Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2009 6:07 pm

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The floors at Melrose were covered with carpet when we bought the old place. Not to put too fine a point on it, the carpet was hideous and old and infested with moths. It seemed like a very good idea to rip all that mess up, and we did it, but no good deed goes unpunished. Under the carpet was the original heart pine flooring covered in paint splatters, ground-in filth, remnants of long ago bird droppings and patches of mysterious stains best left unexplored.

For the longest time we managed to ignore the floors because there were so many other projects that demanded our attention, like the roof that leaked and was causing deterioration throughout the house. But the roof has been replaced, the interior walls have been repaired, the kitchen has been totally remodeled, the upstairs bathroom (otherwise known as the bloody bathroom) is once again usable, the front porch has been rebuilt, a new heating system has been installed for half of the house, yadayadayada. Now the floors creak out for repair.

We had refinished one floor last year and the effort was really pretty massive. After that, we had intended to follow up with a room-by-room attack plan, but somehow as 2009 moved along, we always found other things to do rather than return to the backaches that were certain to accompany floor refinishing. By a stroke of luck, we learned of a floor refinishing job that had been done in another historic house in town by a fellow from up in Virginia and after we had seen the floor, I swallowed hard and said that we needed to have the same fellow do our floors. The cost, and it was bound to be high, would be offset by having all of the floors sanded and ready for the next step rather than waiting many months and very likely years to get the floors done by ourselves. I envisioned myself check out of the ol' folks nursing home so I could hobble down to Melrose for one more round of floor sanding.

So, the floors have been sanded and my wife reports that they look wonderful. I'll see them this weekend for the first time. The big issue since the floors were prepped has been what the next step should be. Stain only? Stain and wax? Stain and polyurethane? polyurethane only?

I heard some pretty scary stories about how easy it is to screw up doing polyurethane on a floor. But after reading many articles on the subject, I have come to the conclusion that the reason why many people apparently have problems putting polyurethane on floors is (1) not preparing carefully before the application, and (2) rushing the actual application process, especially the drying time.

This weekend, we will put that understanding to the test. I know that if things do not go as expected, we can always remove go back to square one with some sanding and gnashing of teeth. But I really think we can avoid that.


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eileen wrote on Fri Aug 14, 2009 6:37 pm:

I'm sure everything will be fine as long as you take things slowly and carefully. Just think - once one floor is done then the rest should follow on nicely, hopefully, without any complications. I look forward to hearing how you get on over the week-end.

Good luck!!

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lulu1107 wrote on Sun Aug 16, 2009 11:54 am:

Sounds like things are evolving nicely at Melrose! Your dream home is taking shape right before your eyes (and aching back). I'll bet you have seen Melrose in it's glory through your mind's eye already, though! I know I do that when I see historical homes, no matter what their state of repair is. I'm sure I speak for us all when I say "I'd love to see some pics sometime." Great blog!

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Netty wrote on Thu Sep 10, 2009 12:22 am:

Melrose is sounding more wonderful all the time :)

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