Bed Stuy Reno: Sanding
November 9, 2009
Back Parlor Sanding
Removing the Paper After Painting
The First Pass with the Drum Sander
The Finished Results
After painting the back parlor room, G and I switched gears the following weekend to sanding the floor. We still had the sander and edger we were borrowing from our generous neighbor, with which we had previously sanded the kitchen floor.
We needed the back parlor habitable by Thanksgiving, since G’s mom was coming from Brussels to stay with us. At the time, G and I were camping out on the bottom floor and trying to get the top floor rented. The last time G’s mom had come for a visit, we were still living on the top floor, where we had just finished painting and sanding, and the bottom two floors of the house were still deeply “in progress.” We wanted to show G’s mom that the house had evolved since her last visit, and also give her a comfortable room to stay in.
We had about three weekends to go before T-day, so we needed to crank through the sanding and get on to the sealing, so we could let the floor dry, and then try to furnish the room in some kind of inviting way.
When sanding, G works the drum sander, and I work the edger. I hate the edger. It’s heavy and awkward to use, and extremely powerful and aggressive, so requires a lot of control. It’s also incredibly loud, and the whole thing creates a lot of dust too. The experience of sanding is really intense, kind of like spending a day inside an airplane engine. But the best part of it is the transformative results.
The back parlor floor cleaned up pretty well – I wouldn’t say perfect, being that there were a lot of stains and weird marks to begin with. We got maybe 80% of all the stains and marks up, but the floor still bears some evidence of its history.