Kitchen Remodel: Phase Two

Floors
July 16th-20th

We have original hardwood floors through our home (lucky).  Most are covered with carpet (unlucky).  The floors were all covered with carpet when we moved in.  We replaced all the carpets except for in the dining room.  We left that exposed (as well as one bedroom).  It was VERY hard to re-cover the floors with carpet, but they weren't in good condition and we weren't going to spend the $$ refinishing the entire house, so we covered the areas we live in most:  Two bedrooms, hallway, stairs and living room. The dining room floor wasn't in the best condition, but we lived with them.

Our dining room hardwood floor. This picture actually makes them look better than they really were.

When we decided to do the kitchen remodel, I really hoped that there would be hardwood under the linoleum in the kitchen, and also hoped it would be in good enough condition to refinish it.  I really wanted a flow from the dining room to the kitchen.  Our house is too small to chop it up with various different flooring.  We lucked out, and the floors in the kitchen turned out to be hardwood, and in good enough condition to refinish!  Now we just had to live through not being able to use half of our house for a week!

Day one:  The floors were sanded

This is the kitchen floor after it was sanded!

Do you remember what they looked like before?

Linolium

Asbestos tile

Hardwood, but looking rather yuck!

Quite an improvement, huh?  We were so happy!

Then they were stained!

Kitchen

Dining room

 So, sanding occurred one day, staining another, and then it took three more days for the coats of polyurethane, and the floors were finally complete!  The girls and I fled to Cleveland, OH to live with my parents for the week.  The thought of dealing with two kiddos while only being able to live in half the house wasn't appealing.  Instead we had a good time with Meme and Papa while poor Todd had to stay home and make sure all the work was getting completed in a satisfactory manner!

And here they are...stained and sealed!
 

We are really, really happy with the final product!  So excited about the way the floors turned out!  Wish I had a picture of the kitchen floor to put here, but we promptly covered that with Ram Board to protect it from the contractors that would be in and out in the next few weeks.

Stay tuned for Kitchen Remodel:  Phase Three!