BedStuy Reno
« Top Floor Bath - Patching In Tiles Sanderson Files: The Kitchen Floor, Second Pass »
March 4, 2008
Sanderson Files: The Kitchen Floor, First Pass
A long long time ago, G and I laid down the salvage pine planks we had gotten from friends of ours in Carrol Gardens in what would be our future kitchen. The tradeoff was sweet - we got the boards for free in exchange for removing them ourselves. We were really pysched, and we finally installed them in out place on New Year's Eve, 2006-2007, and you can read about it here:
http://www.brownstoner.com/bedstuy_reno/archives/2007/01/le_nouveau_plan_1.html
http://www.brownstoner.com/bedstuy_reno/archives/2007/01/le_nouveau_plan_2.html
One year and change later, we have finally cleaned up said planks. How do they look? Awesome.
We borrowed our neighbor's drum sander and edger, and went over the floor for a first pass with some incredibly heavy duty sand paper to get the first layer up. G worked the sander, I worked the edger. It wasall really loud and slow-going. We wore earplugs and respirators, and being all locked in like that makes for an intense experience. It was sort of like being inside an jet engine for a day. But what really motivated us was how good the boards began to look.
After a first pass with the super-rough grit paper, we followed up with finer and finer grit papers, eventually finishing with 150 grit paper. The pictures above show the floor during and after the first pass with the super-rough paper.
Comments
Looking really good. How do you plan to finish them? Any whats the cutout in the middle of the floor?
Posted by: Mrs. Limestone at March 4, 2008 3:01 PM
Looking at you guys reminds me of us 12 years ago. Doing almost all of it ourselves. I still wonder how did we find extra time after work to do it and still have the energy. Reminds me of trips to Home Depot in Flushing at midnight
(before they had one in Brooklyn). How romantic! Well worth the effort. Thank you for sharing and keep posting.
Posted by: guest at March 4, 2008 4:29 PM
Mrs. L, that cutout is where the island will be and will hence be covered - we were able to save a bit on the amount of the salvage boards we used, and it also helps us locate the island when we install it.
4:29, I love to hear that you guys went through the same thing and are still together and cool. We've already gone through stages with this renovation, which at times has felt more like a sentence than a project. At first there was excitement, then the honeymoon was over. Then there was exasperation, realization about the hard work we have put in front of ourselves. However, there have been many rewards and feelings of accomplishment too to keep us moving. Amazingly, we have found a decent groove at this point, G and I now actually work well together on the house, in part by giving eachother enough space on tasks to complete them in our own way.
It's true that our lives are different than a lot of other couples we know! But we tell ourselves that when we get through it, people will finally understand why we are doing what we are doing.
In the meantime, this floor is looking good and it is getting close to kitchen install time. We are finishing with Waterlox tung oil+resin mixture. G wanted no gloss, and we decided against using poly after advice from comments on this blog. Stay tuned.
- Peter
Posted by: guest at March 4, 2008 5:24 PM
4:29 here. I still miss the excitement of renovation. Every little progress was a big achievement. And all the Corona we had drank while renovating I should have invested in their stocks. This is before we have found out about Stella :) We are both architects as well. And contrary to all beliefs we could not afford the work being done by contractors. Trust me you will survive this and have many pleasant memories and surprise - you will miss it. It is an addiction of sorts.
Posted by: guest at March 4, 2008 5:44 PM
That's funny. We're into Trader Joe's $3 buck chuck, and tall boys from the deli on the corner are for some reason really cheap. Sometimes we mix highbrow and lowbrow when we have a break of budweiser and belgian dark chocolate. Thanks again for the vote of confidence and the positive sentiment.
- Peter
Posted by: guest at March 4, 2008 6:23 PM
Looks great. You will be amazed at some of the colors lurking in that wood.
Out of curiosity, why did you place the floorboards widthwise rather than lengthwise?
Posted by: slopefarm at March 5, 2008 3:55 PM
well, we laid these boards down on top of the existing subfloor, which was running against the joists, which gave us the option of going in either direction - we chose widthwise to emphasize the direction in which the room opens up into the nook we created.
- Peter
Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 4:18 PM
Looks like a lot of work to get those re-sanded, but they look amazing! About how many hours did it take to sand?
Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 10:03 PM
In the end, we it took about two hardcore days of sanding, getting up early and working until the sun went down, but we also did the hallway on the bottom floor here too (pics to come) at the same time.
- Peter
Posted by: guest at March 6, 2008 2:27 PM
Post a comment
Please be patient while your comment is published. It may take a moment.