Flooring 
Round 2!

What we thought would be a 2 week project (silly first time home renovators :-) turned into a 6 month adventure. Last we posted our floors were covered in tar. We had two options, spend the time to remove the tar or spend money on sand paper. 

We decided to save money and attempt to remove the top layer of tar by hand scraping with a heat gun. As you can imagine this was taking FOR EV ER and our patience was running thin. After a few nights hand scraping and feeling like we weren't getting anywhere, we decided to try sanding. 

So Jeff started sanding... sanded some more... and sanded some more...

Even though it took a number of passes, the tar came up relatively easily. Jeff will probably tell you it felt like years but it wasn't long till the first floor was done and ready for stain.

TIP:
When it came to choosing a stain we made sample after sample. (Even though we thought we liked a color it would test different almost every time). We tested a number of stains at different lengths of time. Most apparent on the above sample (fifth from the left) you can see that how long you let the stain set before wiping it down can dramatically change the outcome. This is the same stain but we let the lower half sit a few minutes while the top half only set for about 30 secs. 

We decided on Minwax Classic Grey Wood Finish from Home Depot and quickly
realized that even after testing the stain, it was to brown. (stain closest to the window in the image below). So we tested our second favorite Sherwin-Williams Wood Classics - Rustic Grey. (Second from the left in the image above and the stain closet in the image below).

We liked this stain much better and once Jeff re sanded the stain we didn't like it was time to officially start staining!

Staining was much faster then sanding. Jeff applied the stain with a cloth by hand and I would follow a few seconds later to wipe up any extra. We then applied two layers of clear semi gloss sealer. After 6 months of tar, sanding and staining the results are shown below!!

Before

After

Even though it took much much longer and it was a challenge to finish our floors, overall we are happy with the out come and that we decided to do them ourselves! Nothing like learning first hand :-D

Next Up... Baseboards and Concept Sketches for the first floor!!