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Saturday, April 19, 2008

Some Improvement is Still Improvement

So I sanded the floors in the laundry yet again today. I filled my house with sawdust yet again today. This would be a major pain if I had actually cleaned up all of the sawdust from last weekend. As it is, I knew I was going to be doing this again, so I never bothered to clean.

There is a visible trail leading from the kitchen, through the foyer, where it then forks, with one path going to the front door and the other going in to the parlor. I went and bought a box of swiffers today, so guess what I get to do tomorrow?

But enough of my poor, retched life. I can bore anybody with that any time I want. This is all about laundry room floors. Now, I realize this is just a laundry room floor. The fact that is just a laundry room floor is not really the point. This is an experiment to see how the rest of the floors will turn out. Many wise men and woman have said: As the laundry room goes, so goes the rest of the house. It was important that I make a real effort to get it right.

I’ll put the before and after…well, its not really a before…well, ok, its before today, so I’ll call it before…what ever, here it is…my first attempt, followed quickly by the second attempt.





As I said, its an improvement. The goal was to even out the color. You can see that black colored board in the bottom of the second picture. This is a replacement board, and this is part of what causes problems. That board is not in the first picture. I replaced another two boards in between my first and second attempts.

All of this wood is original to 1895. These are 1X6, T&G redwood floors. These replacement boards came from the kitchen, which had a bathroom cut in to it back in the 20s. Obviously, these boards suffered from water over the decades. This is what causes the discoloration. Someone suggested bleaching them, but I doubt I could get them to blend in seamlessly, so I didn’t bother. What I did was Sand The Hell Out Of Them. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.

A lesson was learned: When I get to the dining room and start to replace a few boards, wood selection is paramount. I’m going to need to sand replacement boards before installation to make sure that don’t have the discoloration from water. I’m going to call this a success.

4 comments:

N-Pync said...

I would say you had a huge success! You learned something that'll save time in doing the next room, plus - the difference in those pictures is really big. A twofer!

StuccoHouse said...

Looks very nice! The rest of your house is going to look great with those floors. One thing I learned in my great-livingroom/diningroom-floor repair project is that the wood really tends to mellow out fairly quickly....especially if it has some type of oil based finish. I personally really like your dark board.

You probably already know this, but I discovered in sanding my stained boards is that if you run a wet finger across the sanded board, you can tell if the stain is out or not. It saved me some heartache later :-)

Greg said...

Your ideas intrigue me. What happens with a wet finger on the floor.

StuccoHouse said...

It's the lazy person's mineral spirits, I guess. Run a wet finger over the wood and it shows how it will look finished (kind of)....the stains somehow become visable again if they are still there. Works an cat stains...I assume it would also work on black water stains.