The First Time I.......

My super amazing friend, Emily Fazawesome, inspired this blog.  In fact, she's really quite inspiring period.  Seriously.  Check her out here to see the original inspiration for this "The First Time I...." post, and then you should head over to Long Distance Lobsters to see her current masterpiece that she updates daily along with her friend Zoe.  Seriously, right click, open in new tab, and read.  Now.  I'll wait........

Okay, now back to me.  This blog is all about the first time I..... *drumroll*.... refinished hardwood floors!

My husband and I are house hunting.  And by house hunting I meant my husband J-dubs (his selected blog nickname from here on out) looks at houses on Zillow each and every night and then decides we don't have enough money just yet to buy.  But we have gone to look at a few that really caught our interest.  One such house was this GORGEOUS tudor-style (my fave) house in a near-by neighborhood.  It was almost perfect, but we were concerned about some water damage to the roof and backed off a bit.  But it had lovely hardwood floors on the first floor.  We were driving home after touring this house and were talking about how much we loved the hardwood floors.  Now, we've known for a while that our entire house has original hardwood under the dull tan carpet.  We were also planning to re-carpet the house once we sold or rented, due to some stains left over form when we were housebreaking Penny.  The question is posed: What condition do you think that hard wood is in?  I said "Well, let's find out!"  My darling husband replied "When?"  to which I replied "I don't have any plans today!"

So, we came home, moved some furniture around, and proceeded to rip up all the carpeting in the living room.  And the hardwood floors in this part of the house were in really great condition.  That night I ran out to a bachelorette party, which led to me spending the night at the bride-to-be's house.  I arrived home the next morning to find J-dubs standing in the middle of the living room with a random orbital sander.  Apparently, we were ready to go. 

So, we sanded and sanded and sanded the floors, then wiped everything down with Mineral Spirits, and around 10 PM we started staining.  We choose a darker color, Red Mahogany.  J-dubs didn't trust me with  the staining part, so he would brush on the stain and I followed behind to mop it up.  We waited the requisite time between coats and then laid down poly.  The first coat of poly went on around midnight.  Then he had to get up at 3 am to lay down the second.  Yes.  Three.  In the morning.  It was insane.  But our floors looked amazing.

The only problem was that we couldn't walk on it for something like 48 hours.  We ended up boarding Penny for a night, and then I took Penny to my parents for several days so we would not be banished to one room.  Also, for that entire day that Penny was boarded, I had to enter and exit via the window in my room because of the lay-out of our house.  But it was so worth it.  I am still shocked some days when I come into the living room.  It was a very hard task and there are several areas we smudged a bit, but overall it is wonderful and I'm so proud of us for our diy project. :)

Below are some pictures of our ordeal!  I have a few more to add, but I have to get them off of his phone... mine died during the documentation of the sanding and staining:

Ripping up the existing carpet

It's in good condition!

Staining the floors

Difference in colors.

Putting down the poly!

My only way into and out of the house for a few days.