Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Kitchen Floor (After-ish)

Please pardon the tardiness of this post but I said I was going to wait to post pictures until we had finished staining and put the poly on and boy, am I glad we did. It looks fantastic. I'm really thrilled with the results. I could stare at it all day. Let's start at the beginning.
We pulled up a couple of layers of linoleum, scraped off the black junk...


Sanded as best we could


Then we stained and stained and polyurethaned!


A little bit about the stain: we got two quarts of Minwax Dark Walnut and applied it using some old rags.


We would do a little, stop, wait for it to dry, wipe the excess and then do a little more so that we didn't get so far away from our original spot we couldn't go back and wipe the excess off. That was Conan's suggestion and that's why I pay him the big bucks. Well, that and the pictures. He takes really nice pictures. And he's a great cook. And the list goes on and on. But I digress.
It took about two hours to do the entire floor and we used a quart on that first coat.

Those are my mom's feet btw. If they were my feet you'd know it cuz' they'd be taking up about half the picture. The little feet gene skipped a generation apparently : (

On Friday afternoon the floor was still a little tacky but I decided to go ahead and put a second coat on anyway. No pictures of this step because I was working alone that day.

It stayed pretty tacky on Saturday and Sunday so we decided to sit around and twiddle our thumbs until it could at least be walked on without sticking to our shoes. Yesterday it was dry enough for polyurethane so we got a gallon of Minwax Fast Drying Semi-Gloss and some lamb's wool pads for application. They come on a little wooden block that you screw to the end of your broom handle. Much easier than hands and knees. Kind of like the stain, we did a little at a time with me on the floor wiping up foot prints before we put the polyurethane down. The results speak for themselves I think.

Again, I can't say how happy I am with how this turned out. It's just...there are no words. Aside from the inconvenience of not having a stove to cook on and having to go through the living room, onto the back porch and into the laundry room to get to the fridge it's been a relatively easy process. They're still a little tacky under the cabinets so we're going to start another project (I know!) while we wait for the floors to dry completely. Betcha' can't guess what it is!

31 comments:

  1. Looks great! I like that imperfections are still visible in the wood.

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    1. Thanks! I said that some people would pay a lot of money for wood that looks that torn up ; ) I swear that they must use a staple gun to "distress" wood furniture!

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  2. Looks great, and I can't wait to hear what your next project is!

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    1. Thanks! I hope I don't let y'all down. My next project really isn't THAT big of a deal : )

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  3. I KNEW you were going to start something else before June. What could it be? You're (mostly) done with the living room, dining room, upstairs bathroom, office, and guest room. So I guess that leaves the downstairs bathroom, the other bedrooms, the basement, the attic, and the exterior. Oh and the rest of the lot. I'm gonna go with downstairs bathroom.

    How's the darker stain compare to the lighter in the rest of the downstairs?

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    1. Well you know me...I just can't resist taking it down to the wire. Like I said up there ^ it's really not that big of a deal. But I have been eyeing that downstairs bathroom...
      The stain is noticeably different but that little hall between the kitchen and living room was also a different color so I guess it's not that bad. Only time will tell, though. I'm hoping to get some rugs in there to draw attention away from that.

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    2. It looks amazing! I don't know why you'd be worried about two different stains in two different rooms. That is precisely why I'm picking a completely different color than our main room for our kitchen. I want it to look like two different rooms when you hit the doorway. After all that's what it looks like now, with the good floor and then the mastic covered subfloor.

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    3. Never thought of it that way! I think we might put a threshold cover between the dining room and the kitchen just because we didn't do the best job of keeping the stain perfectly in the kitchen. We'll see though.

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  4. Great work, I love it!

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  5. Your header literally made me laugh out loud! (first time visitor, thru blue door blogs). The floors look great! *subscribing. :)

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  6. Damnnn! That looks amazing!! I am so glad you didn't paint, this is just top class.

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    1. Thank you! And I'm totally going to put a badge on here that says "This is just top class" and attribute it to you. Love it. Just sayin'.

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  7. Fantastic job! Congrats on the gorgeous floors! =D

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  8. That floor is beautiful! Y'all did such a great job. It is just stunning.

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  9. WOW!!! I LITERALLY gasped out loud when I scrolled down to the "finished" photo! You have no idea what you have done!!! LOL I know we have hardwood under at least three layers of flooring and black tar paper in our kitchen. "Oh, Hooooooney!!! I have a GREAT idea!!!" wait until I show this to my husband....I'll give him a heart attack! LOL

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    1. Oh My God. If you can do it...... Maybe... just maybe we can do it.... Kanni make room in the dining room for the Fridge... Lets start ripping that floor up. - Kanni's Husband

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    2. I love it! Bringing couples together over tearing stuff apart! You can do it! Bring on the glorious wood floors : D

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    3. Here I thought HE would have a heart attack! Now I think I might! :D
      I meant this as a "Someday" project...not a "TODAY" project! Oh, boy....I've created a monster! :)

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  10. OMG Katherine, this is amazing. are you still going for that painted checkered look or are you leaving it as it is now? btw: love your inspiration board, can't wait for the finished kitchen...

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    1. I think, because of time, we are just going to leave it the way it is for now. I REALLY want to put a rug in there but finding one I can afford is going to be a challenge. Sigh, maybe someday...

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    2. a rug can be really difficult when it comes to spending too much money, i totally agree. you probably saw this already but there are a lot of DIYs around the web of people painting cheap ikea rugs in almost any pattern ;-)

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    3. I've seen those and believe you me, we have an IKEA stop planned on our summer vacation in Colorado : D

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  11. I love it! Gorgeous floors... You used the same stain we are using for the trim in our house, and I absolutely LOVE it. I'm thinking now that I've seen it on your floors, we might be using it on our floors as well. Thanks for the inspiration.

    I like that you chose not to paint the floors... That would be a crime!

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    1. Yay! I'm glad you like it! As for not painting the floors, yeah it was kind of difficult to put a paintbrush on it after all that hard work : /

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