Monday, October 13, 2014

Demolition Day


Remember when I discovered that there was hardwood underneath the carpet in my house?

I was going to have the contractor come in and rip it up out of the foster bedroom, but he kept pushing back the schedule, and I was dying to get a look at all the pretty wood.  So on Saturday, I bribed a friend with the promise of a yummy! diner! lunch!, and we got our game on. 

Here is the room, before:  (You can see where I had already started pulling in the far corner):



I will tell you what, it was a lot of WORK yanking all that carpeting and padding up.  And then there were the tack strips, which looked like some kind of medieval torture device, which we ended up crowbarring up off the floor, but in the end we got it all done.  I still have nine kabillion staples to pop out of the floor, but that'll come.


Are you ready?


Are you ready for the awesome floor reveal?


Ready ...


Set ...


GO!!!!!!




Dudes.  Duuuuuuuudes.  Granted, it only looks so shiny because I had just mopped it, and I'm still going to have to put some kind of finish on the floor (suggestions welcome), but can you believe it?  Can you believe somebody covered that UP?

I keep going to the doorway, just to gaze at the pretty wood.  Hot DAMN that's a good-looking floor.


9 comments:

James P. said...

Yes, it is really pretty.

It was surely covered up when carpeting was "IN".....probably because people associated bare floors with the depression era or something.

Mama D said...

Beautiful! Glad all your hard work paid off. :)

spiffikins said...

that is amazing!

definitely worth the effort!

rockygrace said...

Ginny, there's no accounting for taste, I guess.

and Mama D and spiffikins, this project DEFINITELY had the best reward/effort ratio of any home-improvement project I've ever attempted. Four hours and a boughten diner lunch and that floor went from meh to amazing.

Still accepting suggestions for refinishing ...

oh, and spiff, let me know if you wanna go to Mexico ... :)



the queen said...

When will you pull up the rest of the carpeting in the rest of the house? Is there more?

rockygrace said...

queen, there's carpet in the hallway and the other bedroom. I wanted to get this room done first, as it's the room I use for foster cats. Plus, I need to find out how much work the refinishing is gonna be before I go whole hog ...

fmcgmccllc said...

I just put clear poly on mine, it is some kinda oak and it looks great. I went for low gloss and am happy. Yeah, a lotta work but a great reward.

~~Silk said...

The floor might already have a sealer on it, and then wax on top of that. If there is wax, it would have to be removed before you apply another sealer.

Check to see if it's already sealed - does water not sink into the wood? If so, maybe all you have to do is Simonize (carnuba wax) and polish.

Caution - I am not an expert.

rockygrace said...

fmcetc., I'll look into poly - how many coats does it take?

And ~~Silk, so, if water sinks into the wood, that means it's not sealed? So I have to seal it, then wax it? But if water doesn't sink in, then it's sealed, and all I have to do is wax it? And why would I wax over a sealer? (I am new at this CAN YOU TELL?)