Continuing on the floors

Yesterday and today we continued polyurethaning [is that a word?] the floors. It takes about an hour and a half to do the whole house and we got super stoned off the awful polyurethane fumes, which was not actually as fun as it may sound. So the first coat looked something like this:






And Andrew got to wade in polyurethane again.



And the second coat looks even better...
After having dinner at Los Compadres with Joe, Amanda, Corey and Kate and their kids, Oliver and Polly, the gang came by to check out the floors before we started the third coat while Oliver slept in the car. It was great to have friends over to see our progress!

Then we began the third coat. We're hoping to get a fourth coat on tomorrow before we leave for Virginia to spend Thanksgiving with Andrew's sister, Carrie and her boyfriend Mike. Yay! A mini vacation will be great. We get to relax for a few days and the floors get to completely cure!

So Happy Thanksgiving to all. Enjoy spending time with your families!

And the work continues...

We woke up bright and early, well okay not so early. I headed to Starbucks for some caffeine and Andrew went straight to the house. By 10:00 the caffeine was starting to hit.
Andrew began the final run-through of the entire house with the finishing sandpaper and wonderfully powerful sander and then began the touch-ups with the palm sander while I swept the house by room, again. Around 1:00 Andrew and Jeremy were on their way to Home Depot to return the sander and to pick up polyurethane. Who chose to go with the oil based gloss because the oil based brings out the wood color a bit more and the color of the polyurethane richens over time. I headed to a baby shower for my little sister Bridget to celebrate the upcoming arrival of my first niece! Andrew continued sanding while I was gone. I arrived back at the house just in time for another sweeping session. Then the mopping began. Lots of mopping. We mopped all the floors several times to make sure we got all the grit up and the headed out for some fresh air and dinner. When we arrived back an hour later, the floors were dry and ready for the first coat of polyurethane. And so we mopped the floors with polyurethane...

And we mopped...















And mopped...















Until we backed our selves right out of the dining room door.




(Andrew really likes this picture of himself: "It looks like I was wading in it!")














Oh, but I almost forgot the treasure find of the day. While I was away, Andrew decided to open the odd grate in hall wall. It is a grate that appears to have at one time been the in-take vent for the old central heating system or perhaps the old furance. We're not sure which, but it is odd because it is under the attic stairs. So Andrew opened it because it looked like something was in there. And so he found:



Lots of bags filled with tuperware! Yay. All shapes, sizes, and colors. Now why these treasures were inside the old intake vent, we'll never know, but I sure can't wait to pull them all out and use those suckers!!!

Day 2 of Being Home Owners

Day 2 was long, but we got a lot done. We searched the house for hidden remnants of carpet and and found them in the hall closet and at the bottom of the attic stairs. Andrew ripped those suckers up.


With all the carpet removed, we were ready for the sander. While Jeremy and Andrew went to Home Depot to pick it up, Sarah and I hacked at the kitchen floor.



Then the sanding began. It lasted for many many hours, but we sanded all the floors of our 1489 square foot home!

















Sarah and I even got to man the sander. Which was very fun, so I highly suggest you try if ever given the opportunity.























But mostly, Jeremy and Andrew sanded while Sarah and I tried our best to get all the sawdust up by sweeping the floors thousands upon thousands of times. [The next time we re-do the floors (har har) we'll definately invest in a shop-vac.] We did get a pretty good upper body work-out. Honestly though, we spent most of our time standing in dusty rooms talking, which I'm sure was great for our lungs.
And even though the boys worked hard, don't worry, they did get some rap time in:



We also found a spot on the wall that
easily exposed the many layers of
wallpaper on our livingroom wall. Which I thought was pretty cool. It's generations exposed (at least until we rip it all down).


Even though we were all completely exhaused by the end of our 12+ hour day, it was a lot of fun and we got a lot done, yet again! So we went home and collapsed in bed. From what Andrew says, it took me about two and half minutes to fall deeply asleep!