Refinishing Floor Fun

I thought I understood refinishing floors.  I know enough to be dangerous, is closer to the truth.  Three bouts with rentals from Home Depot gave me a little too much courage.   I was all confident going into the dining room refinishing and feeling all sorts of good about it.    Sunday morning, I picked up the sander, muscled it into my trunk, bought all my extras, and drove it all home.   My first clue that it was going to be an interesting day was when I went through 4 changes of the coarsest grit and started sanding off nail heads before I got to all the nooks and crannies.   I paused to nail-punch a bunch of nails back down below surface and change the pads again and decided I might just need another trip to Home Depot.

My floor is parquet and so every square foot is comprised of 6 parallel 2” boards.  Each of these sets is rotated 90 degrees from each other and each little board has been sitting there for almost a hundred years finding its own angle of repose.  Depressions big and small dotted the landscape and thwarted the big grits of the sander.   Out came my little Ryobi Corner Cat for a couple of hours.    Finally got all the varnish off and down to bare wood everywhere at a nice fine grit… back complaining… knees complaining…wrists and ears and nose complaining…. Gabby, my cat, complaining.      I will definitely have a sanding party for my living room floor after going through that on my own in the dining room.    

Ultimately, it all ended up very well.  I uncovered a lovely inlay of what I think may be dark walnut/cherry? any ideas? And oak, I think, between living room and dining room.  Whoever put this floor together had a very artistic eye and I very much appreciate their woodworking skills and the beauty of the different wood juxtapositions is really amazing and well thought-out.   The floor looked/looks great.   I proceeded to get rid of the dust to prepare it for staining and polyurethane and this is where I went all wrong…    I have done this before, and this is why it is such a surprise.  I mopped the floor.  This is post vacuuming and wiping down with a sponge.  If I had to do it again, I would burn the mop, instead of use it on my floor, because once I got about 1/3 of the way into staining the floor, mop-marks – not sander marks – started showing up little by little.   It gave me pause, but in my head, I convinced myself that it was just a little moisture making it look a little different.   Four days later… those little mop marks are Still There.  How is this possible…..     Can I tell you how frustrating it is to go through all that and to have it sanded nearly perfectly (not a sander mark to be found) and then to have Mop Marks show up??     Crap.     

And so:   Word to the wise.   Even if you’ve done it before.   If you are sanding a floor, Do Not Use A Mop to aid in your clean up. 

 

All in all it came out pretty well, but when the living room floor gets done, the mop will be solidly hiding under some box somewhere in the basement.   And I will absolutely be sure to make more of a party of it.   I figure my house has character and character goes a long way and ultimately, I’m pretty ok with it, but there was a hint of almost perfect hanging in the air there for just a moment.  That hint still has potential whispering to me for my living room.  We shall see.  Will I ever learn?