This weekend was the big floor-sanding-extravaganza. We rented an orbital floor sander and set to work. We have to/had to get ALL the varnish off the wood floors so that we can stain them a new and darker color.
We had to replace one floor board that had termite damage, so here is a good contrasting picture of what the floor looks like w/out varnish as opposed to the varnishy gold-red tint that the floor was before sanding.
Mike sands in the living room. Ha. There's mom moving clothes out of a closet....
I had the...uh...privilege...of sweeping and vacuuming dust. At least I got to look dangerous in all of my work-gear. I think Mike and Dad may be scared here...
Mom sands for awhile in the living room. Ugh..Look at all that paneling. We're probably going to have to sand all that too in order for our plaster-faux-finish-paneling-covering-solution to work...
After day 1 of sanding, we finished the dining room, living room, hallway, and about 1/4 of one bedroom. Now on to day 2....
I thought I'd give sanding a try. Big mistake.
I added this picture to show how late we worked. Day 1 we were working from about 8:30am until 8:45pm with a few breaks for food. Day 2 started around 8:30am and we didn't get done until about 11:30pm.....In this picture it's probably about 9:00pm. We're really starting to get tired. I took over sanding at one point and Mike accidentally fell asleep at the dining room table.
Last room!
Unfortunately, the sander, even with a coarser grit, didn't get all the varnish off the floors in some of the low places. We're going to have to go back and either hand-sand with a belt sander or small orbital sander to get those spots off. Maybe we'll try a chemical removal method. Or just burn the house down. I've had that idea several times....MEANWHILE while others are sanding.....
Dad and I went to Home Depot and bought 6-panel doors to replace the old wood slab doors. We figured out that we'd save money by just buying new ones instead of adding a fake 6-panel look with moulding and paint.
Here's the new doors standing next to the old ones. It will definitely brighten things up and make the house look more clean and sleek.
Mike and I picked out light fixtures for all the rooms (a simple globe-light thing for all the bedrooms and living room and a chandelier light for the dining room). Here's the basic globe light we installed. It was hard to find a light that didn't have 1/2" thick glass that was tinted yellowy brown. We're trying to get RID OF all the yellowy-brown junk in the house, so we definitely didn't want that!
Next steps:-Get rid of small patches of varnish. Clean, clean, and clean the wood floors from dust. Stain floors. Stain them again for the 2nd coat. Put polyurethane on top.
-Start tearing out vinyl floors while being extra careful not to die of possible asbestos poisoning.
-Destroy bathroom.
-PAINT rooms, do the faux-plaster-paint-thing to cover paneling.
-Put in appliances in the kitchen so I can cook meals while we're working instead of having Wendy's every day.
-and many many many more, each with its own probable road-block in the way....
