Hiring It Out

Justin and I disagreed on one thing when it came to refinishing the hardwood floors.  I wanted to do them ourselves, and Justin wanted to hire it out.

I hired a professional to refinish the floors in the last house.  I consider myself fairly handy, so I knew I could tackle this project this time around.  My argument - it's not difficult...it's time consuming.  And we would save several thousand dollars if we chose to do it ourselves.

I guess my argument wasn't strong enough.  Justin won.  We hired it out.  As long as he agreed that we would do as much ourselves to save some dough.

First, we called in two different companies to quote us on refinishing the hardwood flooring.  I called the company who refinished the floors in our first house and then called one other company that a friend recommended.  I explained that we just needed the floors sanded, stained and coated with 2 coats of Semi-Gloss Polyurethane.  Justin and I would remove all furniture, tape all vents, windows and doors, do all the clean up (of sawdust left on walls and light fixtures), and stain and install the quarter round molding.  Offering to do this work ourselves helped us save up to $3 per square foot!

Refinishing floors cost on average $1.50-$5 per square foot.  The two quotes we received came in very close to each other - one was $2.10 per square foot, and the other was $2.30 per square foot.  We ended up choosing the company that I had already worked with.  Their price was a bit lower and I know he would do a quality job and would stay on schedule.

Day 1 (Tuesday) - Sand floors and fill gaps, choose stain

Day 2 (Wednesday) - Complete floor sanding process

Day 3 (Thursday) - Clean floors and apply 1st coat of stain.  Apply 1st coat of Semi-Gloss Polyurethane

Day 4 (Friday) - 2nd (and final) coat of Semi-Gloss Polyurethane (floors can be walked on with stocking feet 5 hours after the poly coat has been applied and furniture can be moved onto the floors 24 hours after application)

We are now through day 2.  I took some pictures after day 1 (the floors look very similar today).  Today, the floors are completely sanded down and ready to be stained:

Below you can see the stain samples that Ron (the floor re finisher) left for us.  He patched floor gaps and sanded them smooth in the dining room after the first day so we could choose a stain.

It's hard to tell in this picture, but there is actually filler between each wood plank (the filler closes up those gaps that show up on hardwood floors over time).

You can see the wood filler below:

  

They weren't able to sand all the flooring on day 1.  You can see a perimeter of the old floor stain in the picture below.  Day 2 allowed them enough time to complete the sanding, filling gaps and final sanding.

Below is a good example of what the flooring looks like unsanded (with the old natural finish), sanded to remove the finish but still with gaps, and then with the gaps filled (but not final sanded).

It's a very good thing we prepped for the sawdust.  Here is what was left after day 1 on the plastic sheeting.  Imagine this twice as bad after day 2. 

Finally, the fun part.  Justin and I discussed our top three stain colors (using Minwax stains).  Our top three are below.  Each sample below is one coat of stain and one coat of semi-gloss poly (except for Special Walnut - this stain does not have a coat of poly on top).

We don't feel as if the picture below shows the colors most accurately.  Provincial showed quite light and special walnut seemed to have a bit of a red tinge.  Oh, and I'm well aware that I spelled Provincial wrong in the pictures below.  I'm sorry...it's too much work to change it.  

This picture provides a much more accurate representation of the colors.  Notice how the Provincial is lighter?  Do you see red in Special Walnut?

We love warm floors and we knew we wanted a darker floor in this house as well.  We just wanted to try something more medium-brown rather than dark-espresso brown.  I used a mixture of 60% Jacobean and 40% Ebony in the last house, and this time around, I wanted something a bit lighter.  

Special Walnut doesn't have a semi-gloss poly coat in this picture, but I couldn't stop seeing red in it.  Maybe it's because there wasn't a top coat.  The red scared me and I didn't want to take a chance.  

I had high hopes for Provincial, but it just seemed a bit too honey colored for our tastes.

And finally Dark Walnut, the darkest of the three has grayish, ashy undertones that was still quite dark.

What do you think we chose? 

Dark Walnut is exactly what we were looking for.  We wanted a dark, ashy color, but lighter than what we had before.  

When it came to choosing a finish, that choice was easy for us.  I had a satin finish applied to the floors in my first house.  I felt as if the satin started to look dingy pretty quickly.  I had to apply a protectant to give it a nice finish again.  So, we decided to go a semi-gloss this time around hoping that the floor is less upkeep.

What do you think?  What stain color is your favorite? 

Mary