the floors - part one

I'm about a week behind with construction updates... deadlines at work...

Monday, August 8th
... the moisture content of the wood and subfloor finally dropped to acceptable levels! Hallelujah!
Installation took 2 1/2 days...

... as throughout the rest of the house, White Oak is the wood of choice... when you have a piano and a St. Bernard, you go for the strongest and most durable wood species... no questions asked... 

... the staircase, however, is a combination of Red Oak and Poplar. We ended up going with Red Oak for the treads and newel post since the original wood paneling is Red Oak... we wanted to stay consistent... 'softness' isn't a big deal for the stairs. In appearance, the only major difference between the treads and the floors is that the treads will show more 'graining pattern' once stained...

... we are still trying to figure out what to do for a handrail and upstairs guardrail.

Wednesday, August 10th
Installation complete and sanding has begun...  

... sanding the stairs and floors took about 1 1/2 days. 

We have a couple critical details to figure out in the vestibule... first being the front door threshold. The floor is approximately 1/2" below the original stone threshold... originally the floor in the vestibule was approximately 1/2" higher than the floor in the living room... that is not the case any longer. A transitional wood threshold piece would not have worked... so, what to do...

... not much? The second detail is the front door framing... big gaps all around the door. We need to get some weather stripping, specifically some type of metal stripping for the threshold... otherwise we'll have a wind blown snow bank inside the vestibule, like we did last winter...

Thursday, August 11th
1/2 day of sanding and 1/2 day staining the floors... but...
... which stain color do we go with... Neutral, like the Kitchen and Dining Room? or Rosewood, like the upstairs... which means refinishing the Dining Room and Kitchen? We've been chewing on this decision since July 5th... Rosewood or Neutral? Neutral or Rosewood? Bryan favoring Neutral... I favoring Rosewood... yet both unconvinced...  

... when we did the floors upstairs, we went with Rosewood. The upstairs is quite bright, lots of sunlight thanks to plentiful windows and skylights... the Rosewood stain seemed fitting for the house... rich in color... suited for our urban turn-of-the-century rowhouse. However, when we started working on the downstairs, we were concerned the Rosewood would be too dark... the downstairs didn't have as much sunlight as the upstairs (no longer the case... we added 5 windows)... and with the kitchen cabinets being Cherry, we thought having Neutral White Oak floors would be a nice contrast, plus 'lighten' the space...

Neutral

Rosewood
... we figured we could either refinish the upstairs floors or transition with the stairs somehow, the upstairs floors one color and the entire downstairs another... it wouldn't be that bad, especially since both are the same type of wood... but then we really started thinking about it... refinishing the upstairs floors was out of the question... and having one color upstairs and another downstairs... it would bother us... I know it would... so Rosewood won... even though it meant refinishing the dining room and kitchen floors...

... same selections as upstairs... stain is a dry application (wet application = two shades darker) of one coat of Dura Seal Penetrating Finish in Rosewood and finish is two coats of Dura Seal Polyurethane. Downstairs we had gone with water based vs polyurethane... big mistake. After 2 1/2 years, the floors look worn... kind of glad we are refinishing them!  

Friday, August 12th
First coat of polyurethane...

Saturday, August 13th
Buffing and second coat of polyurethane were supposed to happen... however the polyurethane was not dry enough, and Rob was concerned about damaging the stain... so...

Monday, August 15th
Buffing and second coat of polyurethane applied...

... pretty!
The photo does not do the floors justice... however, since at the time this photo was taken we could not walk on the floors yet, my camera angle was a bit limited.

I kind of don't want to move much furniture back in... maybe just a chair and side table... but such is not the case, since this morning all the furniture we had moved into the dining room and kitchen, and more, moved back into the living room so that Rob could start sanding and staining the other half of the first floor...