so here it is all at once

closed escrow july 19th...  got keys 3 days later... the wife and i usuially shoot 3-4 matches a month... last time i pulled the trigger was july 20th.. i placed 2nd (3 stage rimfire rifle/pistol match)

anyway...  been workin my ass off since... had a lil help with painting but most of it i did myself... worked 7-330 m-f at my real job... then another 5-6 hours a day on the house...the wife decided that the kitchen (details on why are below) and bathrooms can wait for a while...


anyway.. on with the pics



master bedroom... the purple has a dusting of bright baby blue spraypaint... (notice the fancy closet door in the master bathroom)


this is the kids room... the green was just about the same color as the outside of the house... we like the green on the outside... on the inside it was awaful...


the yellow and beautiful carpet was in every room but the kitchen and livingrooms


the yellow was done single coat with a roller... "extreamly shitty and patchy" was a nice way of saying it... at this point i had decided that the carpet was just too gross and piss soaked... im not a fan of paying for stuff i can do myself and i figure the carpet people would charge me less if it was already removed so i decided i could do that myself... so without telling the wife i started pulling it out...


this is the first pic i sent my wife... i knew there was going to be hardwood floors since the house was built in 1949.... however i expected half of it to be plywood due to past water/termite damage... so i kept waiting to find it...


i didnt find it in the livingroom


wasnt in the master bedroom or in the kids room
(notice the fancy closet door is open... its not really a closet... in fact its 90% of the reason i decided to buy this house... this will have its own thread once i get to start working on it..... on paper its a "3rd bedroom"... in reality... as my wife said when she first saw it "o man this is a perfect gun room... were going to need to beef up the doors and walls but o man... this is great... i think we could dig under this and build some sort of a bunker)




this area will show up again
the floor was pretty rough.. but i figured i could save it.. i knew it wouldnt be perfect... wife was ok with it not being perfect... we figured "character" would be something that suited us well





so after about 3 hours with the stand up random orbital...
20 minutes with the 1/4 sheet...
around 11 days half days and 4 full 16 hour days with a 5" orbital i got the whole floor done to 100 grit...



heres that area again... stain was only on the surface... the "cupping" was pretty bad but it just gave the place  "character"





found some old termite damage... nothing real bad...
found 3 spots in the kids room
4 spots in the living room
1 spot in the hall
around 40 board feet through the whole house
ganahl lumber (formerly do-it best or something) sells original hardwood flooring
89 cents a board foot for red oak... not bad..



at this point i was running on fumes and started not taking pics... i know i have some on my phone but today is the first day since i started that i didnt have to work on anything... i wanted to be asleep about 3 hours ago... but for the hive... im still awake


so... moving foward...

after the sanding was done i then decided that baseboards needed about 6 less coats of paint... so i pulled them.. then sanded all the way to the wall... the hardwood baseboards are in the garage at the moment... at first the plan was to strip them then refinish them... but its a lot more work than i want to do and i want them to be white so the idea of stripping original hardwood baseboards just so i can repaint them feels way stupid... so ill just stuff them in the attic for the next owner...  the wife has decided that this is a good idea... baseboards go in real quick and easy so thats a project for after we move in..

the floors were then papered off and the walls were primed... i didnt use the lil wagner thats in one of the first pics... a buddy of mine told me he had a real sprayer and that if i promised to help him repaint his house in a few years i could keep it... i juse had to get it working... so after bit of messing with it and after getting a new spraygun... it worked and i had a new sprayer.... took 2 days to prep the house and about 4 hours to spray it...
the kitchen walls only had 2 layers of paint... the original off white and then the yellow... however they never washed the walls before they repainted them so the layer of grease/dirt made the yellow paint peal off like a sunburn... so thats going to be a bit of work to do correctly so its going to wait till after we move in... the tile in the kitchen is cracked and ugly.. the countertops are plastic... the oven is slightly larger than the kind that cooks with a lightbulb... so in a while ill get to work on that...


im fallin asleep so stick with me if the words are not coming out right

again this is where some pics were lost... so just look at the walls... the floors come next...



ok so walls are primed... we decided to make the house feel bigger (1150sf) by doing an "accent" wall in each room with the rest of the walls being white (or "apple core")
the wall from the livingroom to kitchen was going to be green (or "celery sprig")


master bedroom was going to be blue (or "refreshing cool")


and the kids room was going to be red/pink (or "orchid rose")




once the paint was done the damaged ares of the floor were repaired and replaced... LOOSE boards were secured... squeeks were shushed (aka i nailded the shit out of everything)... holes were filled with wood filler ( i used 2 different kinds... the first kind sucked and did not take the stain for shit.... the second stuff i used worked great... ill get a materials list into this thread at some point)





then i stained the floors... i started in the maste bedroom... again i was running on empty when i started and somehow missed the first line of the directions on the can... wife was the one picking colors and such and somehow she failed to mention the important part of staining wood... "mix the living fuck out of it or all the color will be in the bottom of the can"... woops...
the part by the wall was one of those tiny cans... we had tested a few differant stains on some scraps and decided "dark cherry" was the winner... the little can got bounced around a lot and mixed up pretty good without us knowing about it... the small can covered around 3 feet then i switched to the gallon size can.... "what the fuck is with this color its not at all the same!!!!!"



at that point i stoped and double checked the can... thats when i noticed the instructions said it needed to be mixed... the master bedroom ended up with this blonde river in the middle.. but i went back and redid that area... by the window the floor came out right... the middle is a bit dark and the other side is pretty damn dark... the rest of the house went pretty easy... i used a "deck brush".... youtube videos show people using a paintbrush to do a room... fuck that i had a whole house.... youtube also has people using a floor buffer... the rental place said if their floor buffer came back with stain on it they would charge me a hell of a lot of money... i figured "wtf how hard can this be people have been doing it for over a hundred years and i know that no way in hell is a pro going to do a whole house with a 4" paintbrush... i was right... the deck brush worked great... (just dozed off a bit.. sorry for the word salad)

i stained the master bedroom saturday afternoon... then the rest of the house on sunday... then it had to dry... sealing the floor was going to take at least 2 coats... but it also needed "up to 4 hours to dry" enough to walk on it... that pushed me to monday night... i got stuck at work for a bit and didnt even start untill around 530 lastnight... took about 1.5 hours to do the whole house... it was 86° in the house when i started... by the time i was wrapping up the first coat the stain in the can was turning to glue... i ended up on my hands and knees smearing the shit in by hand with a towel for a 8x8 section in the livingroom because it was pulling the head off the brush... i was pissed.. but that was coat #1 rougly 7pm
i couldnt start the second coat till almost 11pm... by then the wind had died and i had discovered the the fan was dryign it too fast and turning it to glue... so by the time i was done around half past midnight i was having tunnel vision and was beyond lightheaded... it was also dark as fuck... the overhead light didnt do shit... the spotlight was great when i was working infront of it but once i got more than 10 feet from it i could not tell what was fresh and wet and what was the first coat... oh well... thats what area rugs are for...


so i went back today to see how it turned out
today was the first day since i started that i didnt have to do anything... i spent 4 hours cleaning up the yard and trying to get the 19 or so fruit trees under control in the backyard (i know nothing about fruit trees)... pics of trees will come later


heres the final product... a little blood... a LOT of sweat and no tears went into this... as well as around $800-900 in tools and materials...  paint is friggin expensive...

the footprints you see are dust on TOP of the seal... they wipe right off


floor when you open the front door




toward the front door... the stain came out alright... i got more overlap with the stain than i thought i did.. but once we add some couches and an area rug the screwed up areas should be pretty hidden


back of the livingroom


kitchen into the livingroom


repaired area in the kids room


her floor came out the best


master bedroom... the stain was a bit fucked... but it looks nice...


the messed up area in the master bedroom that turned out just fine in the end


and rules are rules



wife


kid... the day of her first EBR outbreak...

Looks good.  Besides being cheaper, doing that sort of work yourself is so rewarding.

(Is your daughter wearing a Snuggy? )

Awesome work.
Great family.
You're living the dream.

congratulations you sir are a man.  floors look pretty damn good.  I bet that beat the hell out of putting in new carpet

Looking good. I like the dark staining on the hardwood floor.

its extreamly rewarding... skill wise it was nothing i couldnt handel... doing it alone was a bit of a task and not knowing any tips/tricks on the stuff... im sure i could have asked the hive and someone for sure has refinished a thousand hardwood floors... but i figured as great as "group" thinking is... some times you just have to say screw it and go with what you think is right.. and if yer wrong and you really fuck it up... well thats just the way things go and not everything always turns out perfect.... the floors not perfect but it is really damn close to how i wanted it to turn out...


and yes its a snuggy... grandma always has the best gifts... my wife owns more than one mumu thanks to her... love my mother in law (honestly i really do... just need to take her crackpipe away around the holidays)

You have the most colorful house I've ever seen.

you and me both... i like the green in the livingroom... its going to be nice... we have dark brown couches and all the other furniture is about the same color as the floors... so it will keep the room for feeling dark... im good with it...


the master bedroom... well.... that wall sure is blue... but the wife likes it... she says... "it reminds me of the beach"... i say "yeah but i hate the beach... and you only like it for about 2 hours".... and she then reminds me that "its our house we can repaint it"...... im thinking a nice classy picture might be getting hung on that wall... something velvet... maybe something with elvis or dogs playing poker...

and the kids room... well... shes 14... her dads a shitbag and just about everything i do makes her smile... so if 6 coats of paint on 2 walls is what it takes to keep her from slamming doors and screaming "i hate you yer not my real dad".... im more than happy to do what i can... her mother and i have been together since she was 6... her dad has shit talked me every day... she figured out on her own what the real deal is... shes a good kid..

So, let me get this straight.

You did that with an orbital sander. Are you crazy?!!?



Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

How about a freakin 48k warning. Holy hell!

No shit.  Tenacity.  That man has it.

Good show OP.

yep... by hand with a 5" orbital.... the whole floor got a once over with a real standup full size sander but i could not find the sandpaper pads for it anywhere (3 HD, 2lowes 1ace and a harbor freight) so i had to do it by hand... my wife helped for about 3 hours and killed 1 orbital.... i did the rest of the house by myself....

im so glad im done with that friggin floor... im taking friday off to start moving... ive got help for moving the fridge but the rest ill be doing alone.... yesterday i did the couch and loveseat...

Well done sir

Looks great!

Good work OP!!

Looks good. I think you would have been better off going lighter on stain but, still much improved.

good job, OP

kinda wishing i took more pics of all the stuff i've done in our house since we bought it.....
ours wasn't near as old (about 20 years old now) but was builder grade crap everywhere....
i'm down to the kitchen, master bath, and paint in the living/kitchen/hall
and landscaping.....ugh....lots and lots of landscaping....