Phase 2

It's been a long time since I last updated you on my sneaky, sneaky living room floor upgrade. Mostly because I've been distracted and waiting for My Vet to be gone for a week.

My Vet doesn't like living in mid-construction so I try to wait. Additionally, My Vet hasn't seemed convinced this flooring project should be completed. One evening after the kids went to bed, we started talking about how the carpet needed to be cleaned again. This led to a discussion on how the 15 year old couch needs to go,  and how nice it would be to have an inexpensive rug that could just be replaced. During our drawn out conversation My Vet posed a question to his social media account and within a few minutes was conversing with a local floor refinisher and had a bid that fit our budget! I quickly ordered a new rug and removed the old carpet so he couldn't change his mind.

Not the best but you can see my patchwork around the edges.

Sure we could have rented the equipment and done it ourselves, but the cost of rental and supplies wasn't that much different than the bid from TNT Sanding and Flooring.

As avid DIY'ers you know we aren't easily intimidated and usually prefer to save the $$. We always try to think a project all the way through as well as weigh the pros and cons before diving in. This time, hiring out was the best decision. 

My helper was a bit nervous and wouldn't leave
my side after the furniture left the room.

While we were able to accomplish other things, the team from TNT spent 6 hours with multiple machines, sheets of sandpaper, and sweat just sanding. About hour 4 I knew that I would have said "good enough" so I know they got much better results than I would have. Reason #1 why hiring TNT was financially smart.

Looking Pretty!

I had originally planned on just sealing so the floors would be light in color, but My Vet wanted a dark stain.  Ultimately, I wanted the carpet gone more than any color. After looking at half a dozen stains non seemed right.  TNT kept looking and brought back a color that both My Vet and I loved! (Reason 2) 

The entire project took 3 days plus a week of dry time before I could move in the new rug. I know it would have taken me a lot longer than 3 days to finish (Reason 3)

This is after 3 hours of sanding. They got the rest of that bruising out!

It is not considered to be a "dustless" process, but they taped of the room and vacuumed 3 1/2 large bags of sand dust that were removed from the house. There was a thin layer of dust on surfaces in the living room, and no more than usual in the rest of the house!  On my own I would have had a week of deep cleaning the rest of the house!  (Reason 4)

It's been almost 2 months and I love it even more!  I dust more now,  but all of that was just hiding in the carpet before. The house smells so much better too. I still have some trim work to do when I can work outside again next summer, so I'll share those steps with you then. For now I'm enjoying my beautiful new to me living room.

Lets go way back and show you how much has changed.