Wallace Decker refinished my floors.
This is what they looked liked before.
He masked off the parts of the house that weren't being done.
This was necessary as a lot of dust was generated during the sanding.
Both the living room and dining room had sections of floor in the centre that were
laid with raw lumber.
They used to do this to save money on hardwood.
It is not uncommon to find this in older houses in Newfoundland.
An area rug would have been placed over this part of the floor, anyway.
This is the entrance on the main floor at the foot of the stairs.
The floors were quite grungy.
Old shellac and wax.
Here's the old staircase.
Initially, I wanted the top of each stair sanded down but I quickly decided
that I wanted to keep the staircase exactly the way it was.
It's just so old and interesting.
The upstairs landing before.
What a huge job it was to refinish the floors in the house.
I can't believe I even considered trying to do it myself.
This is what it looked like after the first day of sanding.
He had to use super coarse grit sandpaper.
Wallace sanded the main, large areas of floor with the machine.
The edges are done with an edger.
Small, tricky, uneven areas had to be sanded by hand.
He sanded at a diagonal to the grain of the wood to even out the raised edges of the boards.
I wanted to expose the softwood areas in the middle of the rooms and keep that history.
I asked Wallace to finish them.
He counter-sunk the nails, filled the holes with wood filler, and finished
those areas of the floor, as well.
The front hall area after the first day of sanding.
The Newfoundland Birch was so much lighter without all the old varnish and wax on it!
It took Wallace six days in total to do the floors.
This is what the floors looked like after the final sanding with fine sandpaper.
I loved the colour of the wood at this point.
Three coats of semi-gloss varnish were applied.
There were a lot of fumes.
The grain of the wood really stood out when the varnish was wet.
This is what it finally looked like when it was finally dry.
It actually dries very quickly. It took only half a day or so.
So beautiful!
I'm so happy with how they turned out!
I love the wood.
I also wallpapered the living room with white, embossed wallpaper.
The white walls and natural wood floor look beautiful together.
