Oh yeah...the FLOORS!

Okay, so throughout the house are these knotty-pine plank floors. They're so incredibly cool! However, the seller had not treated most of the house -- just the sun room, our closet and the attic bedroom. Leah and I started in the master bedroom with hand sanders...but, that didn't last very long. The next weekend I rented a sander and sanded the whole house. Then mopped and swept, and spot spanded a bit more.

Then, the waxing began. Instead of doing a varnish, we decided to go with the same treatment that had already been done, which is this poly wax oil stuff. It's pretty cool, eco-friendly and all that, about $100 bucks a gallon...but, can be spot-patched, which makes it pretty much worth it. I started application in the west living room. Boy, did it liven up the place! The floors went from a grayish wood to a honey warm. Beautiful! Then, I looked at how much I had left, and had to steel myself for the project ahead. At the rate I was going, I estimated I had 18 more hours...and that was just for the 1st coat. ugh! Fortunately, Iwa' stepped in, or, stooped in as the project required, and we got the first coat on in less than a week in between our full time jobs, and hula and belly dancing classes.

Then we did a second coat...then I was stumped. It wasn't nearly as smooth as the other rooms that were done by the seller. What had I done wrong? It wasn't smooth, and it wasn't shiny?

So, I bought another 100 bucks of stuff, and laid on another coat, not buffing this time. There was the shine...but, it was still pretty rough.

In the end, we were on hands and knees sanding the entire floor with steel wool! ugh! but, this seemed to do the trick.

Because they are pine, they are soft. And, upon finishing the job, Derek promptly christened them with the first of many dents to come by dropping his hammer in the middle of the livingroom. D'oh!