Construction begins on the cottage!

Before moving into the cottage, James and I decided that we wanted to make some improvements. 1st on the list was to restore the wooden floors which turned out to be more work than we could've ever imagined!

We began with having to knock in all the existing nails so that they were out of the way of the sander. Next we had to putty all the holes and any cracks or broken bits.

Living room with putty lines

Kitchen. I removed all the cabinet doors so that i could refinish them.

James hard at work.

Living room almost finished.

Brad got roped into helping us aswell :)

James doing the edging with the hand sander.

The imperfections in the photograph are my camera picking up sawdust particles in the air. The place was FILTHY after we finished sanding. And i can imagine that the exposed beams, rafters and the ceiling fans must all have an inch of sawdust on them.

We had to sand the floors down with 3 different grades of sandpaper, then i was able to apply the first coat of stain. Unfortunately James chose a waterbased stain because it boasted a 3 hour drying time. Although i dont really know how much better an oil based stain would've worked, this one has proved to be an absolute pain in the butt.

I've put two coats on, and then the boys used the big sander to sand it back, BUT it was too much sanding and so the coats i had put on were removed and we were back down to the floor. So i started again, two more coats, and then we used hand sanders to sand down the "whiskers". Again way too much sanding and not a careful job and so it's patchy! So this week i will have to apply more coats, and sand everything down by hand again and then apply two more coats. I have to say, the quote that we got to have it done for $2000 was totally worth the money. I wish that we had opted to go that route instead of trying to do it ourselves. I WILL NEVER ATTEMPT TO REFINISH A FLOOR EVER AGAIN!