Floors done, thanks & pics of the finnish

[BigCal]

Hi Everyone, After 3 days of work over from friday to sunday the floor is finally done... Firstly would like to say thanks to everyone who offered any advice on any of the million questions i have asked in the last month or so!!

It all went reasonably well, the hire drum sander was a bit ?????, and my edging skills left a bit to be desired!! the Bona traffic Matt went on pretty well and easily, we used the retarder for it on the last coat to slow drying a bit - which also ment we could get it on a bit easier & thicker...

A few things came to light during sanding that we couldn't do anything about, the tiles had been laid with different types of glue, some had the black gunk under them and some didn't, the area's where the black crud was used came up really clean and raw looking timber... but in the other area's what ever it was had stained the timber - and only where the tiles were, where the groute is there is no staining, so we have a light pattern in some of the floor a few light specs here and there and a bit of colour change in area's of the house. Tried sanding the stain out, i tested a corner with the edger and took about 4mm off and the timber was still not back to normal colour so we didn't try to get it all of with the drum we decided to live with it...

See the pics below - in the first 2 there is a join there where the original floor meets some recycled boards that I had to put down where an exension to the house was made - can anyone spot where? im really happy with the colour variation or lack of...

All in all we're happy, altho i'm a little disapointed in the timber being stained and the light specs thru it, but thats life, its a billion times better than the 2 colours of tiles that were there!!

[Wongo]

That looks good BigCal. You did a great job.

I sanded the floor for sister-in-law a few years ago. I thought I did a pretty good job but my brother-in-law didn't. He wasn’t totally happy with it. My FIL thinks he was picky. He ended up getting a professional sander to redo it. I was a little bit annoyed I must say.

My FIL and I think the 2 results were pretty much the same but because it was done by a professional so all the faults became acceptable. It is all psychological I think.

I wouldn’t want to do it again though. It is bloody hard work. I would get someone to sand it and finish it myself. That is exactly what I did to my floor last year.

[BigCal]

Cheers Wongo, I don't think I would do it all again either!! this was a once off, we wanted to save as much as we could and I wanted a good project to do around the house... so it suited... a deck is the next project, but that will be a next summer job now!!

[Dr - 307]

BigCal,

Well done. Looks excellent. If the whole floor looks as good as it does in the pic with the light coming through the door then I would be bloody proud.

Good stuff, Dr - 307.

[BigCal]

Cheers Dr, we are proud of our efforts... only area's that don't look quite that even are the kitchen and the end of the hallway where it goes left and there is a square we couldnt do with the drum so i had to edger it, those 2 area's are a little ripply, but its not enough to feel and it mostly blends with the grain so its not the end of the world I guess...

[Dr - 307]

Mate,

That's better than a mate's place I saw where an extension was done in the family area and instead of lining up the new baords with the old and staggering the joins so it blended in well they just added 100mm (yep, 10cm ) pieces right along the join area so know they look at - long board, 100mm piece staggered left by 50mm, long piece staggered back again 50mm - so in effect looking down the length of the room you look at a zig zag at that point. When I said to them they should've made it a feature and at least put in a board sideways like it looked like a perimeter feature so it seperated the two areas they just shrugged and said it didn't look that bad. If it was my place I reckon I would've got up in the middle of the night and started ripping up every last board in the whole freaking house.

You did great, don't worry about the ripple. I've sanded a floor before and honestly f*** that for a joke. You did better than me.

Cheers,
Dr - 307.

[BigCal]

Cheers, I was glad we decided to go with matt finnish - bloody bunnies don't stock 120 grit for their drums so we had to finnish with 100... which didnt end up being a big deal but i was at the time in bunnies - also because we had to hire machines from one shop and then drive to another to get the 40 grit!! wasted over n hour of our time...

I must also say my lovely wife got busy on the drum and she did 99% of the drum sanding while i did the other bits and pieces, punching nails and filling, edges removing staples etc etc she did a great job with a dodgy machine!

[UteMad]

Mate,

That's better than a mate's place I saw where an extension was done in the family area and instead of lining up the new baords with the old and staggering the joins so it blended in well they just added 100mm (yep, 10cm ) pieces right along the join area so know they look at - long board, 100mm piece staggered left by 50mm, long piece staggered back again 50mm - so in effect looking down the length of the room you look at a zig zag at that point. When I said to them they should've made it a feature and at least put in a board sideways like it looked like a perimeter feature so it seperated the two areas they just shrugged and said it didn't look that bad. If it was my place I reckon I would've got up in the middle of the night and started ripping up every last board in the whole freaking house.

You did great, don't worry about the ripple. I've sanded a floor before and honestly f*** that for a joke. You did better than me.

Cheers,
Dr - 307.

Almost impossible to stagger cut into an old floor when you extend a room.. Some guys try but you will have problems for sure as if the boards differ in moisture or width by as little as 1mm each they wont keep in line and you'll be gapping the new boards or over tightening them to stay in line.. If its 2mm per board forget even considering it.. I know the adjacent board aint the flashest but atleast the floors are independant

cheers utemad

[Dr - 307]

I know the adjacent board aint the flashest but atleast the floors are independant

That's exactly what I was trying to say. At least if you improvise and turn a situation into a feature then criticism will be come down to personal taste not bad workmanship or an attempt to fix gone wrong.

Dr - 307.

[Dusty]

Just spotted this thread.

Way to go, Cal.

Great achievement. Now you'll have more than a fair idea why blokes who do this sort of thing for a quid, keep doing it. That great sense of a job well done.

Give your missus a peck on the cheek, she has done an awesome job on the drum sander. Is she interested in a full time job?

Once again, well done.

[BigCal]

Cheers Dusty & thanks again for all your help! my fillet of timber came up great!
Yeh the wife did well with the bloody machine we had patience was definitely key as it wasn't doing anything fast!! she did three passes with 40 grit, a 45 degree and then one each way with the grain then 2 passes with 80 and 100 one each way with the grain as well! so she sanded the place 7 times! would be interesting to know how many mm was taken off the boards... but like i said the sander was ????? so its probably not that bad...

thanks again