Sand the Floor

Sand the floor Danielson...

Daniel sanding the floor and wondering what was up with that crazy old man.

Mr. Miyagi training Daniel.

Mr. Miyagi said it best, with that gruff Japanese accent.  When I try to say it, you hear my southern accent coming back with a vengeance.  Sand the floor John Rabb.  Okay, so I said it really nicely in a playful sort of way, but man this has been one challenge after another.  

Our town is small.  Not a lot of shopping options.  Yes, we have a Wal-Mart, but we no longer have a K-Mart, Safeway or Piggly Wiggly   We have a couple of clothing stores, a small JC Penney, (where I find really good bargains every chance I get), a few local restaurants and we even have some fast food restaurants, including, McDonald's, Taco Bell, Burger King and Wendy's.  None of those were located here yet when I started high school.  We were very happy teenagers when that McDonald's opened.  Needless to say, Lowe's and Home Depot haven't decided that this would be a prime location for them to locate a store.  The closest Lowe's is in Leesville about 30 minutes away and Lake Charles has both Lowe's and Home Depot about an hour away.  So you can see trying to go to one of them can take a large chunk of your day. 

We needed to rent a sander.  We have four rooms with hard wood floors.  The floors need to be refinished, badly.  So, to save money, John and I decided we would do the work ourselves.  Which of course means John does all the sanding and I cook, wash clothes, clean the house, run errands, shop and anything else that needs to be done.  

We checked at Lowe's in Leesville and they didn't have a sander that would work so we checked Stine's, a local hardware store that is located throughout Louisiana and they have quite a reputation.  All the local contractors obviously shop there because it saves them massive amounts of time in travel.  I know this because ever day, when I pass the store, on my way to Wal-Mart, the parking lot is full!  It surprises me because most items are priced higher than the other "box" stores.  Sometimes it seem it might be worth the drive for the savings, but man, it is so convenient to drive there for supplies, it is really close to our house.  So naturally, we decided to see if they rented sanders.  Low and behold they do.  They had two options.  John talked with a very helpful store employee who talked him through everything.  He got the sander home with all the necessary supplies, including the $5.00 each sanding pads; holy moly!  He started the process only to find that he was using up the sanding pads very quickly and the sander wasn't really doing the trick.  So I decided to go to the experts to find out what we were doing wrong.  

This is the second sander we rented from Stine's in DeRidder.  This is after sanding the living room with the first sander.  You can see it didn't do a very good job.

Google is such a handy search engine.  I remember the day John and I were talking on the phone while he was at work and he said, "you gotta check out Google, it's great!"  I still agree, and that was about 9 years ago.  I Googled "sanding hard wood floors" and was taken to Youtube.  I found several videos and learned that we were using the wrong kind of sander...at $50 a day and all those sanding pads that he had used up already were making that cha ching sound in my head.  We decided that another trip to Stine's was in order.  He said they had the other kind of sander at the store and he would go back for that one.  He did get a $20 discount on the rental of the first machine, but the second machine was $35 per day and those sanding pads weren't cheap either.  So another hour spent at the hardware store and then he arrives home with the "new" sander.  It had to be at least 40 years old.  I don't know if men were that much shorter back then, but the handles on this thing would have been too low for Zachary to use.  But, this is what we had to work with.  He pulled out the pads and began trying to attach one to the wheel thing.  It didn't work nearly as easily as the one in the video from Home Depot.  He had to unscrew something on the wheel and then we tried working the pad around it and then tightened the screws.  We finally got it on, or so we thought and when he turned on the machine it made this loud noise and out comes the torn up, expensive, sanding pad.  It was obvious that these sanding pads didn't fit this machine.  So, back to the hardware store we go.  We decided it was time to contact Home Depot and get the machine from the video.  That would solve all of our problems, yeah right.  

We decided that after Zach got on the bus Monday morning we would drive to Lake Charles to rent the  machine that would save the day.  I suggested that we call Home Depot to make sure that they had the machine available before we made the trip and John agreed.  We were surprised to learn (not really, that is how this whole project has gone, right) that all of the Home Depot stores in Louisiana rent sanding machines with the exception of the Lake Charles store.  At this point we didn't have a plan "b."  I thought for a few minutes and suggested that we contact the Stine's store in Lake Charles, maybe they had a better machine.  Much to our surprise they did, so we made the trip, after putting our very nervous 10 year old on the bus, for his first day of schol.  One benefit to going to Lake Charles was getting to see our oldest son Chris, he lives near Lake Charles so we got to have a quick lunch with him before heading home with yet another sander.  

We were very happy when we learned that the sander had just returned from being serviced and that it had the right sanding pads included.  The rental fee was still $35 per day.  We were even allowed to keep it for two days.  Allowed, makes it sound like they gave us permission.  I imagine we could keep it for a month if we were willing to pay the $35 per day.  

Finally, the right machine.  Finally, we are making progress.  This machine even came with instruction on how to treat old floors.  After sanding each room with three different grits of sandpaper the natural wood, in all of it's glory is revealed.  Man what beautiful wood!  I had considered pulling up the hard wood in the the rooms in the past and maybe moving them to the other side of the house.  I had even thought about changing the floor in the dining room, the room that is turning into the laundry room, to ceramic tile.  Not happening.  I can't take that flooring up.  It is too nice and in really good shape.  

So for now, the floors will stay sanded, unfinished.  We will get to that later.  Our plan was to get the floors sanded so that we can build the walls for the laundry room and get the kitchen project started.  Mission accomplished.  We are thinking about leaving the floors natural and just coating them with poly.  That is how our hardwood floors in Colorado were done.  We will get to that decision at a later date.  For now, we enjoy the fact that sanding the floors made them even more beautiful than they were, not to mention making my mom really happy because we decided to save the floors that have always been in the house. 

This is the dining room that is going to become the laundry room.  We will change out the windows and that corner Zach is where the washer and dryer will go.  Do you see the shadow on the wall?  That is where the buffet "lived" the whole time my grandparents lived here. 

Another view of the same room.  Abby is sitting in the door going to the kitchen.  This stain doesn't do justice to the beautiful wood underneath.  

The doorway there in the picture is to the old living room.  The doorway will be closed off and that room will become a bedroom.  The front door to the house is currently in that room.  Obviously, that will be moved.

The living room, the front door is there to the right.  On the left you see one of our window units.  That one is one that has a heat pump so we can use it year round.

The other side of the living room, this door goes into the hallway.  John and Zach worked really hard to get all of the trim down.  

Living room after sanding with the belt sander all three times.  You can see that some of the floor needs more sanding, that will be done later with a hand sander.

Look how pretty that wood is.  It has been in this house since 1954.  I can't wait to see it finished. 

We have the two bedrooms to do as well, I will post pictures of those for you all to enjoy later.  

Thanks for reading.  

Until we meet again. 
Danna