How to Refinish a Hardwood Floor.

To regular readers who stop by for food and restaurant updates: this post has nothing to do with food, except that you get very hungry if you refinish a hardware floor. The purpose of this post is to assist anyone who is attempting the devilish project called "refinish a hardwood floor."  If you are here from a web search you will have seen plenty of links and articles and ads. It is hard to pick through them but I did get some good advice. I have added a section at the end that details what I learned by doing it that I didn't read through a web search.

First an abbreviated sequence or steps to completion.
1. Start with the idea: "Hey, I can refinish my hardwood floor myself."
2. Grab hammer, extend finger, hit finger with hammer. That is the equivalent pain to the project you are about to begin.
3. Accept pain or call a professional.
4. If you call a professional you can stop reading, if you accept the pain, begin:
5. Remove carpet, nails, tack, staples, fill holes, remove baseboards. For me that took about 24 man-hours. Here is were you have to take time and make sure you are ready to sand before renting the machine.
6. Drum sander first pass with 36 grit.
7. Sweep or blow away sawdust
8. Drum sand with 80 grit.
9. Sweep or blow away sawdust.
10. Use edging sander along floor's edge. Sweep or blow away dust.
11. Conclude that it this is too much work and call a professional, or:
12. Attach a sanding attachment to an everyday electric drill and finish the edges. The tornado edger doesn't get all the way to the edge, which makes you wonder why they call it an edger. They should call it an almost edger.
13. Use vibrating sander in corners.
14. Sweep, blow and remove all sawdust. Do it again. Rub your hand on the floor. See any dust on your hand? When you don't you can start the finish work.
15. First application of polyurethane
16. Lightly sand
17. Second application of polyurethane
18. Lightly sand if doing a third application.

A. Here is a list of the necessary equipment for rental or purchase.
I looked at three different rental places. Home Depot, Lowes, and an independent renter. Home Depot was by far the most helpful and had the newest equipment. Also, Home Depot made renting and returning a seamless process.

1. If the floor is carpeted you will need a couple of good pry bars to get up the carpet tack. And several pair of screw drivers and pliers for pulling nails and staples. My floor had hundreds of staples and hundreds of nails that needed to be pried and pulled. Get the right tools for it, it's worth it.
2. Brooms. Push and kitchen type.
3. Yard leaf blower (I'll tell you why later)
4. Drum sander -- rent -- not too hard to operate
5. Edging sander -- rent -- a hellish beast
6. Vibrating sander -- purchase
7. Drill attachment sander -- purchase
8. 36/80/100 Grit sand papers -- I did about 1400 square feet and used a total of 20 rolls of sandpaper for the drum sander and 20 sheets for the Edging sander
9. Leather gloves. I suggest wearing gloves when pulling up the tack, it'll save your knuckles and decrease the number of nail punctures in your hands.















B. What most information websites WILL tell you.

1. They are serious when they say the drum sander starts the minute you release the drum to the floor. Don't do this unless you are ready to start moving. You have to coordinate the release of the drum to the floor and moving while you are letting the drum down. It's as difficult as juggling but it does take some coordination.
2. Sand WITH the grain of the wood. Very important, especially on the first pass with the 36 grain paper.
3. The 36 grain takes off the old polyurethane and gets you to the wood. The finer grain papers are for the wood itself.
4. Overlap rows with drum sander and start at a different point for each row. This keeps a pattern from developing that you will notice when you first drop the drum down to the floor. Eventually, I got to where I would slowly and gradually release the drum so as not to have that drop down line.
5. Lightly sand after each application of polyurethane.
6. Apply the polyurethane in long even strokes. Not as easy as I thought it would be.

                             

Additional lessons I learned "from doing" or from the boys at Home Depot.

1. The drum can be calibrated so as to sand evenly. When the drum cylinder touches the floor you want each edge to touch with the same pressure. That needed to be reset on my sander, which I did myself. Test in a closet or area no one will notice.
2. When you notice the sandpaper becoming less effective on the drum sander, take it off and put it back on the opposite way. It still has some life in it if it is rotated.
3. Using the edge sander is like holding a tornado. It will move on its own, so get ready. That is real work.
4. Oil based polyurethane will stain the floor. Water based will leave a truer original color.
5. Use the lambswool applicator not the synthetic kind.
6. Get all the nails and staples pulled. They spark when you go over them with the sander and they degrade the sand paper quickly.
7. If you have to sand against the grain do so with a high number paper and not perpendicular to the grain but at an angle.
8. Sweep floor before sanding and after each sand -- otherwise you are sanding sawdust from the previous pass.
9. Stage your starting points. Start 18 inches in on one row, 24 inches the next and so on.10. Getting all the dust off the floor is difficult but necessary before applying polyurethane.
11. Do not use water on a sanded floor but you can once it has a coat of polyurethane on it.
12. I can't describe the use of the tornado like edge sander. I suggest trying it in a closet first. I hated that thing.
13. Before applying polyurethane the floor must be dust free. That is difficult to accomplish since you will have sawdust everywhere. I swept and swept and the floor looked good but when I ran my hand over the floor I still had a lot of sawdust and bits of sand from the sand paper. Eventually, I got my leaf blower and worked the room with that several times over several days and got the floor dust-free. Do not use a damp cloth on sanded wood. I was told after I had completed my floor that mineral water works well. I did not test it.
14. I rented the drum sander for a week. One day before the drum sander week was up I rented the edge sander for a week. My total cost: sanders, tools, sandpaper, and polyurethane was about $800. Total floor area: about 1400 square feet. Time: about 2.5 weeks, including several days of pulling carpet, nails and staples.

Conclusions:
Seriously, if you have the time and you want to do the job properlyI think the average guy can do this job. I have contracted the task several times and the pro's do it much faster and their machinery is better than the rental machinery. But -- the hardwood floor professional makes money by getting in and out fast and if there is a lot of prepping to do before sanding, you will pay extra. If your time is better spent doing something else, by all means contract it out, it is time consuming. But if you like paying attention to detail and don't mind some heavy-duty effort, looking at the floor after it is all done is very satisfying.

Finished Floor

It's Getting Worse . . .

I have always had an above average ability to lose things: keys, phones, and the like. But the time span between item last seen and item lost is getting shorter. I find myself looking for things that I have just laid down, sometimes seconds ago. Today, in fact, I was carrying a box into my office, coffee in one hand box in the other, and laid the coffee down in order to lift the box onto a shelf. After accomplishing said lift, I spent the next five minutes looking for the coffee.

Last week, my granddaughter and I were at a mall in San Antonio and I forgot where I had parked the car. She, a six year old, had to guide us back. Talk about embarrassing.

Not that I have ever been good at the incidentals of life, I haven't, but time is taking its toll on the short-term memory, or maybe it was the inhaled cannabis delecti from the 60's; whichever, at this rate it won't be long and I will be hanging my keys around my neck, wearing a stomach-pouch for my wallet and phone, and putting post-it notes on the dashboard. God help me.

Tempus neminem manet.

Austin Lovers . . .

The Travel section of the Sunday New York Times had a feature story on Austin, Texas. The story ran under their weekly "36 Hours" report. The idea of 36 Hours is to suggest ten local sites for travelers to consider on a brief trip to that city. The suggested sites could be restaurants, shopping, historical, or just something different about that city.

I don't know Austin that well and can't really comment on their suggestions, except to say that I liked the article. But it was rather funny to suggest that visitors first get a pair of cowboy boots in order to fit in. I love cowboy boots but a brief walk through the streets of Austin will reveal more flip-flops than boots. Also, of interest is that the NY Times suggested traveling by Jet Blue in December for about $300 from JFK to Austin.

Not a bad idea. For those interested in the entire article:

http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/travel

Please comment on their suggestions if you are familiar with Austin.

Which Wich, Billadelphia, Menchies...

Summary of three visits last week: two hits and one miss.

WhichWich? on Berry Street.  I expected a Subway-type sandwich, (which actually I like sometimes but don't put in the great sandwich category) and was surprised by the better than expected combination of good crusty bread and a decent portion of meat rolled into a tasty sandwich. I liked it a lot. At almost $9.00 for a sandwich, drink and chips, it is a little pricey, but of the chain sandwich shops in Fort Worth: Subway, Potbelly, and Quizno's, I'll take the WhichWich? sandwich. WhichWich? is a young chain of "superior sandwiches" with stores in about twenty states. Dallas Observer voted them the best cheap sandwich in 2006. About the name . . . I don't like it, too cutesy for me, and as you can see, it makes writing about them confusing.

Menchies is a frozen yogurt store in University Park Village, on the southwest corner, next to the Apple store. Menchies, like Which wich? is another food franchiser growing into the South and the West. If you like the new frozen yogurt concept you will like Menchies. The yogurt is excellent, with about 10 flavors, and the toppings are plentiful. If the fro-yo concept is more than a passing fancy, Menchies will do well. The yogurt is very good and the location is great.

I was disappointed in Billadelphia's on Berry Street near Paschal High School because it was just okay. I grew up on the Philly cheesesteak and have my idea of a good one. Billadelphia's looked right but was missing some flavor and texture. The sliced steak is thicker than I like, and I prefer a little hardier roll, but the worst part was that it was kind of tasteless. A good cheesesteak combines the flavors of steak, cheese, bread and fried onions, and their steak part just wasn't right. I did like the fact that they served TastyKake cakes and Herr's potato chips. I hate to criticize anyone trying to promote the greatness that is the cheesesteak but it just wasn't that great.

Happy Thanksgiving, 2009.

Same post as last Thanksgiving Day.
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 Every Wednesday before Thanksgiving Day, for over 40 years, the Wall Street Journal has reprinted two essays on its editorial page. The first essay, "The Desolate Wilderness" is a brief chronicle based on William Bradford's account of the Pilgrim settlement. The second essay, "And the Fair Land," reminds us to remember our good fortune in a world not often so blessed.

I read them every year. The following are two excerpts from the Wall Street Journal essays, and the links if you desire to read the entire essay (both are short):

Here beginneth the chronicle of those memorable circumstances of the year 1620, as recorded by Nathaniel Morton, keeper of the records of Plymouth Colony, based on the account of William Bradford, sometime governor thereof: So they left that goodly and pleasant city of Leyden, which had been their resting-place for above eleven years, but they knew that they were pilgrims and strangers here below, and looked not much on these things, but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their dearest country, where God hath prepared for them a city (Heb. XI, 16), and therein quieted their spirits.

To read the balance of the editorial: http://online.wsj.com/article
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Any one whose labors take him into the far reaches of the country, as ours lately have done, is bound to mark how the years have made the land grow fruitful. This is indeed a big country, a rich country, in a way no array of figures can measure and so in a way past belief of those who have not seen it. Even those who journey through its Northeastern complex, into the Southern lands, across the central plains and to its Western slopes can only glimpse a measure of the bounty of America.

And a traveler cannot but be struck on his journey by the thought that this country, one day, can be even greater. America, though many know it not, is one of the great underdeveloped countries of the world; what it reaches for exceeds by far what it has grasped. So the visitor returns thankful for much of what he has seen, and, in spite of everything, an optimist about what his country might be. Yet the visitor, if he is to make an honest report, must also note the air of unease that hangs everywhere.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119