For those outside of Canada, today was Canada Day which means that this is a long weekend for us. I’ve also taken a day’s vacation and will not be going back to work until Tuesday evening. A few months ago we decided that this weekend we would sand the floor in one of the bedrooms.
When we bought the house, one of the bedroom floors had been stripped sown to the hardwood (maple) and refinished. In the other 3 bedrooms, the wood floors were covered with carpet and under the carpet were the hard tiles that were all the rage 30-40 years ago. Two years ago, after we had removed the tiles from a second bedroom, I sanded the floor with a drum sander and refinished it with a clear urethane. Like many houses built a century ago in this area, while all the floors downstairs were hardwood, only some of the bedrooms have hardwood floors.
Although I’m not certain, I believe that this bedroom floor is hemlock. Over the last few weeks, we have worked away at getting the floor ready to sand. Here is a pic of the floor before I started sanding it today (click for full size):
And here is how far I got today:
In the long run, I’m not particularly looking to remove all of the finish that’s on the floor. Softwood floors look really nice if they are stained or painted. So, that is what we will be doing with this floor. None the less, I expect that this would look spectacular if it were sanded down and a clear finish applied.
That does make quite an improvement. Sounds like a busy weekend for you guys. Happy Canada day! I remember last year getting a special rendition of O Canada from your daughter.
Well I hope it is cooler there than it is here (which it probably is, and you don’t usually get the nasty humidity either) because that is hard work. Looking good though and I’m sure it will help with the selling of the house. Folks like a nice floor.
Have you tested for lead before sanding?
Looking good from here though…gulp re testing for lead…have never done that before:(
It rained all day yesterday. Today it got up to mid 20/70′s.
There is no paint on the floor. The original finish was a varnish which was covered by a sealer of some kind followed by a filler, then adhesive and finally tiles.
The only place I would expect to find lead inside this house would be in the paint on the door and window trims. Except where the previous owners renovated, all of the plaster walls were directly covered with wallpaper (some places as many as 10 layers).
There are leade testers on the market that cost $10-30.