Hardwood Floors
5June 20, 2012 by stpaulhaus
I think the absolute first thing we did when we moved in was rip up the carpet in the dining room and living room, and by we I really mean I…while Adrian was at work…without prior consent. I think I may have said “This is happening” in response to the his emotionless face and several eye blinks when he walked through the door. Removing carpeting and refinishing hardwood floors has to be one of the most satisfying things you can do for a room, and one of the smartest. Buyers love hard wood floors. Ok, not all buyers, but a lot do. It is a relativity inexpensive improvement that has a big return on the investment according to my knowledge of HGTV, DIY Network, This Old House, Family Handyman, random internet searching, yahoo real estate, and other various tv programming and reading materials.
We ended up having Pete’s Hardwood (St. Paul) do the floors in both the dining room/living room and the kitchen, mostly because it was already worn thin in several places and the living room floor was PAINTED (slaps hand to forehead). Why in GAWDS NAME would anyone think it is a good idea to paint hardwood floors a rusty brown orange? No, people. No. If you find yourself saying “I think I am going to paint this beautiful, original heartwood floor” stop what you are doing, take a hot bath and wrap a hot towel around your head because you must have a serious illness.
Pete’s Hardwood was wonderful to work with. They also rent equipment to diyers that want to save a little dough and do the work themselves. They offer a one-time free lesson to show you have to work the equipment in their showroom. If that doesn’t sway you, perhaps this will–Pete’s was featured in an article in The Family Handyman Magazine. Here the owner gives a ton of useful tips for DIY freaks like myself.
When we redid the dining room floors, there was a HUGE height difference between the dining room and the kitchen floor–mostly due to the 28 layers of flooring covering the original hard wood. Alright, maybe it was only 3, but still. I was a tripping hazard, and I didn’t want to take a nasty spill down the stairs and subject myself to further school absences.
…so you can see it was completely necessary that this be taken care of immediately.
If our floor was in better shape and didnt need so many repairs I think I would have done it myself. Don’t worry, I have plans to do just that in my next little project, but lets not get to ahead of ourselves here. Sadly, I don’t have any before pictures of the hardwood, but the after is nice.
Gleeeeeeeeamin. Anyone else planning on refinishing hardwood floors? How about ripping up carpet when your significant other is at work without there knowledge?
St. Paul Haus 
[…] Under the vinyl flooring was a layer of plywood and a under that was a layer of old linoleum. Thankfully the linoleum was not glued directly to the floor. There was layer of that red rosen paper. All around the room was the weird plastic baseboard which came out first, then the vinyl which came up in about 5 seconds. The problem came with the glue that was used to hold the vinyl down. It actually wasn’t holding it down at all, but it did make removing the 1 billion screws and nail extremely hard as the glue and settled into all the screw heads. We spend HOURS removing all the screws and I was pretty worried about how the floor would look with all those screws. There were screws seriously every 4in, GAAHHHHHH! After the plywood was out the linoleum was removed and the hardwood was exposed. For the most part the flooring was in really good shape except for a few holes, water damage, and some thin spots. Pete’s took care of it shortly after. After much debate we decided to go with an oil-based finish. Smelly, yes, but it was more in keeping with the original finish on the floors. […]
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