Kitchen Update: Hardwood Floors

The floors in the kitchen were finished up on Friday last week.  The installer dropped off the hardwood floors on Monday so they could acclimate to the house for 48 hours before installation.  Wood should always be acclimated to the space prior to installation so they can adjust to the humidity of the house.  The process will reduce any movement of the wood after installation (movement = gaps).

We hired the same guy who refinished the rest of our hardwood floors earlier this year.

Installation started on Wednesday and took 3 days to complete.

Day 1: Installation

Day 2: Sanding and Staining

Day 3: Polyurethane Coat

Thankfully we were able to live in the house this time while the floors were getting done.  And now that the weather is warmer, we were able to open the windows and let the fumes dissipate.

Here is the kitchen after the floors were done on Friday:

The new 3/4" hardwood red oak floors match the original oak floors almost perfectly.  Nobody will ever know these weren't original.  The hardwoods flow seamlessly into the rest of the house.  And where the kitchen meets the basement steps, we had the installer finish off the edge with a bullnose. 

The stain and finish is the same as we did earlier this year on the rest of the hardwoods.  Minwax Dark Walnut Stain, and a Semi-Gloss Polyurethane.

Just ignore that weird plumbing patch on the wall beneath the window.  When we removed the cabinets, there were open holes in the walls.  And not cleanly cut holes - like large sledgehammer holes that someone used to open up the wall for plumbing and electrical.  Certainly not the way I would've done it... but I guess it worked.  It also worked really well for allowing little critters into the house.  Which may explain the bugs we found.

The holes in the wall go behind cabinets (and will always go behind cabinets as far as we can tell), so we didn't waste time patching the wall with drywall and mud.  I used spray foam insulation and filled in the open areas making sure to leave no gaps.  We waited for the spray foam to dry, then cut it flush to the wall. 

Maybe not the best solution, but at least it'll keep the bugs out.

We think it'll be best to finish the cabinets in place, so we moved them back into the kitchen (very carefully).  We did not fasten them to the walls just yet.  It'll just be easier to paint and spray with them in the room that's already prepped for construction.

The sink base cabinet box is missing from the photo below because we had to trash it.  When we removed it, the box crumbled to pieces from years of water damage.  We have to purchase a new unfinished base cabinet from a big box store and alter it to fit the space.  Luckily, the cabinet doors and face were still in great condition and we can reuse these on a new cabinet so no one should ever know it's not original.  

After letting the floors breathe for 72 hours we laid down resin paper to protect them from the rest of the construction. 

The drips of paint you see is from painting the ceiling last night.

This is where we are at today.  We hope to get the original upper cabinets and crown molding installed tonight, and then we can continue the priming process on the cabinets.  Once we've finished priming, we'll be ready to paint!