When we built our house 10 years ago, I thought it would last forever. But, with all those little feet running through our home, our wood floor was beaten up and really needed to be resurfaced. I got a wild hair when the kids went back to school and decided to dive in and do it. Bo and I took a Saturday and sanded the heck out of the floor. It took about 12 hours to get the top layer off. The rest went quicker, but it took about another week or so to get ready to refinish.
I did a great deal of research and decided to use tung oil on the floor instead of the traditional polyurethane. The oil sinks down into the wood and hardens rather than putting a hard layer on top of the wood. It took me many extra hours than a poly and is still curing a little bit, but it is has a great look, and if it scratches, I can just spot apply more into the scratch. It's been done since the middle of September and took about 7 full days to finish. To use it, it needed to be rubbed onto the wood and then forty minutes later wiped off. The rest of the day, it seeps out, and you wipe it down many more times. I got a great workout for those weeks. :)
After we finished the floor, we looked at the cabinets and realized they looked horrible with the new floor. I've always wanted white antiqued cabinets, so we decided to refinish them. This was my project also, so I did all the prep work and anything else that needed to be done in-between coasts. Bo sprayed everything with lacquer though because he's really good at it. The cabinets attached to the wall took 7 coats! Yes, 7. The paint was thin, which made it easy to run, so we had to apply it really thin. The doors went over to our paint booth at the warehouse and took 4 coats on both sides and about 8 hours antiquing. We started those in the middle of September, and I put them up about two weeks ago. It took forever, but it was so worth it. I have some before, during, and after pictures just in case I get a wild hair again to fix something up again. I'll be able to remind myself how much work it will be. :)
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| This is a picture from when we first moved in. The floor is a bit redder then it was, but I forgot to get a good pic of the cabinets and floor before we started. |
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| Here is our scratched up and very dark floor. It got some extra scratches because I wasn't super careful, knowing I was resurfacing it. But, it was pretty bad, and I couldn't even get it clean anymore. Everything stuck to it. |
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| Here's the floor just about all sanded. We had no idea it would be multicolored, but we liked it. |
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| I had to trowel the whole floor with wood floor filler to fill the gaps in it. It was a prefinished floor and got some water damage to it while we were in Hawaii. |
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| That smile is super fake. I was exhausted! :) |
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| The finished floor |
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| Taped and ready to go. |
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| Bo spraying |
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| Before Antique |
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| After Antique |
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| Finished Doors |
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| And there they are! I love it! |
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| I feel like I'm in a new house. |
Thanks, Bo, for being so awesome and patient with my crazy ideas! Thanks to those who fed us dinner a few times while we were living in our RV. It was very much appreciated!
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