Floors: Round One

Last night I began refinishing the floors in the front of the house!  We have a bit to go (3 more coats on these, more heart pine to install, and then about 1500 square feet to refinish one of these days), but it feels great to be taking the first step.  Here are the photos:

The hallway, before sanding.  We hired someone to do this since we don't trust ourselves with heavy sanding equipment.  We've heard horror stories of wavy floors.

Our floor guy told us that when you finish floors, the stain and finish need to be compatible.  Not the case here; what we believe is polyurethane has bubbled up in many places over the old stain.

Sanded hallway.

I applied the first coat of Waterlox last night.  Heart pine needs four coats, with 24 hours to dry in between, and lots of ventilation.  We are not using a stain; the tongue oil in the Waterlox deepens the color a bit and we love it!  The first coat or two might look a bit spotty in places, which is to be expected.

Parlor, before sanding.

Parlor, after sanding (different view - sorry)!

Parlor, after first coat of Waterlox.

Old heart pine on the left, new heart pine on the right.  There is a slight color difference because of the age of the wood, but we're okay with that.  Our floor guy told us that we could put a stain down on the new stuff to match it up with the old, but we're opting not to.  This is just bare wood...I'm not allowed to walk over here again until later this afternoon!

Dining room after the first coat of Waterlox.  These are the new heart pine floors.

Although it's pricey, Waterlox is aptly named because it truly does keep water spills from penetrating the floors, and refinishing is simple because these floors most likely will never need to be sanded down again!  We'll be using a satin sheen for the final coat, and one coat of that is all we'll need to apply if the floors ever get worn down too much.  And we don't expect that to happen for many, many years.