This Old House, Glaser Edition

Friday, October 27, 2006

Absolutely Floored!

We had planned to install a laminate floor on top of the wooden floors, which were in terrible shape. Tammy's parents have laminate flooring in their kitchen, which her dad and brother installed in about five hours. They look great and are easy to maintain.

Some had told us that the floors, painted years ago, would gum up the sanding equipment, so restoring them would be an expensive nasty job. Steve called the floor cop anyway, who begged to differ after seeing the floors for himself. The cop shrugged his shoulders and explained he had brought back floors in far worse condition. We were skeptical, but his prices were reasonable enough to try. For the price of covering 858 square feet of mid-range laminate, he could restore the floors already there.

We are believers now! The floors turned out to be absolutely stunning as you can see! We also picked up a few tidbits about floors. The floors upstairs are yellow pine, while the floors downstairs are oak. At the time in which the house was built, people considered oak to be more suitable for company, but it was also more expensive. To save on building costs, they covered family areas with pine and formal rooms with oak. Pine floors are much softer than oak and show more wear over time. The paint covering the floor did us a favor because it has been protecting them all these years.

The cop and his family sanded the floors several times with increasingly finer sand paper each round. Tammy's brother cannibalized floor inside the cabinet in the homeschool room to get closely matched wood to repair the places in the homeschool room and master bedroom where the wall sinks once stood. To prevent dust from flying everywhere, they attached a burlap bag to the sander and filled eight green garbage bags with dust. Then they swept up the dust and then gave it three coats of finish with a natural stain. We chose semi-gloss over high-gloss because the latter will show scratches and marks more easily.
























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