New wood floors

We just love our new home in Maine.  We fell in love with it from the first time we seen it on the Internet.  It is not your normal home.  It is made of two dwellings joined together by a breezeway.  One half of the home is a round house and the other half you would call a Gabriel style home.  I think that is how it is spelled.  The round side is our living room and kitchen and a loft with a fireplace in the center.  The other side of the home is the bedrooms and baths. 
I new the first project would be the floors.  I do not like carpets, and with two puppies I wanted them pulled up as soon as possible.  So it took Russell, and the kids of course a weekend to pull them out.  It was funny there was another rug under it.  We were lucky we didn't find the floor to be bad under it.  But to make the floor even with the kitchen side we did decide to put down a sub floor of 1/2 plywood.  That made Russell a little stress in his life but he got through it.  With the room being half round the cuts were tough.  I mean he is not a carpenter.  He really hates doing this kind of stuff but we cant afford to hire someone.  Well he did it.  And it came out great.  The kids, even my daughter hammered in the nails. 

before and after

 

this is what the lovely carpet looked like before we took it out.  Also you will see the old hearth that we took out.  It was all broken tiles I did a blog on the new hearth we have now.  So I new that old orange carpet had to go.  I just didn't want the dogs to have accidents on it and I didn't know how many other dogs had already had an accident on it.  I just wanted it gone. 

 

So Russell and Melanie went to it and here is a picture of the nice shag rug under it.  So that had to go to.

Now we had to level the floor up with plywood.

After it was done we painted it because we didn't know how long before we would be able to afford the floors we wanted.  We also wanted to do some work in the kitchen before we finished the floors. 

But next we did the Hearth. Then the kitchen cabinets. Which I will post in another blog.

OK so I will continue with the floors.  I wanted them to look like a reclaimed barn board floor.  But we could not afford that so after doing some research we found some high grade plywood in 4x8 sheets.  Russell cut them in 8'' x 8' strips.  Then he bought a blade for his table saw that would make tongue and grove on each piece.  So each 8'' x 8' board he made a tongue and groove on with my son.  That alone took a couple of days.  But they came out great.

 

Now they didn't go down that easy.  Russell would get frustrated at times.  The floor is not perfectly even and the tongue and groves were not always matching up.  When that would happen he would put a nail on the top which I liked anyway because if you look at an old wood floor you see nails anyway.  He just wanted you not to see nails. 

You can see it looks real nice along the new hearth we put down.  I say we but it was Russell, lol.  I must say Russell did not use any fancy nail guns we are doing everything on a budget.  He used a hammer and nails and a nail tap that was my grandfathers.  Most of the time was getting the right piece to fit.  And with it being cold outside he would have to go up and down the stairs to the basement to do all the cutting of the wood.  We are living in our home during our renovations. 

When Russell would get frustrated I just kept telling him I was in love with the floor.  He worked so hard on it but I know for years to come he will be so proud of himself for doing it. 

He finished the living room and went into the kitchen.  Then we had to stain it.

We wanted a dark stain to go with the white cabinets. We let the stain dry for a couple of days before we started the poly stage.  We did this at night after dinner.  We put the dogs out and in the crate.  Then started the floor. Then we let it set overnight it was set by morning and we could all walk on it during the day.  We did the same for the next three nights.

you would never know this is just plywood!

I think this is amazing I just love my new floors!

it was simple to apply the poly

 

I can't wait till I can put my furniture back.  Please, if you have any question feel free to ask I will answer back!

Here is an update I put the furniture back and we just love it!