Front Steps

While Mindy has been applying polyurethane to the floors this week, Noah has been building a landing and stairs for the front door. Jonah was the biggest helper during this project, handing Noah screws, fasteners, pencils, and whatever else was needed, though all of the kids took a turn pitching in.

Insurance companies like real stairs better than stacked up pallets, so we are building stairs! Next: back door steps.




By the way, the stair treads are resting on gigantic rocks that Noah buried perfectly to act as a landing support for the stairs. Very cool!

The first coat of polyurethane

The monumental day has come: we finally applied the first coat of polyurethane to the maple floors in the kitchen, pantry, and dining rooms! Starting with the 12-grit paper, we used a rented floor buffer to sand the floors using 12, 16, 18, 24, 36, 40, 60, 80, 100, & 120-grit papers. The 12-grit took the longest, chewing up the wood to get the boards leveled, and then it got progressively quicker. We could still see some scratches after the 120-grit, so we used the palm sander on the entire floor with 180-grit to smooth it out a little more. The final filling and sanding of knot holes was also achieved with the palm sander at the 120-grit level. We tried filling before and during sanding with the buffer, but it still pulled out plenty of filler so we had to go back at the end to sand out the excess by hand.


Noah operating the floor buffer/sander -- sorry about the poor photo spots, but this was the only picture taken with this sander

The filler that we used is called Woodwise No-Shrink Patch Quick. The stuff that we chose to use comes in a powder and you mix with water to use. It is very user friendly and sands very easily. I don't think I will ever use off-the-shelf filler again after using this product. We highly recommend it to anyone in need of filling holes in wood. We ordered three different colors: mineral streak black, knot-brown, and maple-pine-ash. Mostly we used the black to fill the large knot holes, but there were places that were knicked or gouged that needed a different color, so we were able to appropriately choose which color suited the hole. And as the name implies, it does not shrink unless it is a very big void being filled.


three filler colors before sanding -- dark, medium, light

We marked the boards with pencil before each grit so that we could see where it needed sanding (watching the marks go away is both satisfying and useful). To have fun with the kids, Noah asked them to "mark" the floor in the dining room between one set of paper by drawing all over it. The kids sure enjoyed this special opportunity to draw on the floor, though it still makes Mindy nervous that one day Jonah will think it a good idea to try again after the floors have been finished!


Jonah drawing on floor


hands were traced


Anna, Jonah, Tabitha drawing


heads of Tabitha, Phebe, and Anna Loeb (our neighbor, Phebe's age)


Abel learned native American symbols in 1st grade


Abel & Jonah drawing together


misc drawing


once the floors were leveled, we marked the floors with a grid between grits of paper

Before we could apply the finish, the rooms had to be meticulously cleaned of sanding dust. We vacuumed the walls, floors, and windows with the shop-vac. We then wiped down all surfaces with a slightly dampened rag attached to a swiffer. We tested our method with a tack cloth to ensure no dust was left behind, and it seems like it worked. Typing this it seems like such an easy task, but it took almost two whole days to prep! The finish that we are using is Zinsser oil-based polyurethane in satin. We are not staining the wood, but letting the natural color shine through with the amber hue of the polyurethane. It is already looking gorgeous. Satisfaction is the word of the day.


kitchen prepped for polyurethane


dining room prepped for polyurethane


kitchen with first coat of polyurethane applied -- still wet


dining room with first coat of polyurethane applied -- still wet


removing the masking tape from the tiled edge

12-grit sandpaper

We rented a floor buffer to do the task of sanding the floors last week (it has one big, rotating pad). The lowest grit paper that the rental place carried was 36-grit. We used it and although it was working, it still seemed slow and was tearing up the paper faster than we liked. After searching online, Noah found 12-grit paper! Voila! The answer to our needs. We ordered it (along with 9 other successive grits up to 120), and the task of leveling the wood is working now. The 12-grit paper leveled one room after about one day of sanding. Now we are working through the grits of paper. We took a few days break for Mindy to chaperone end-of-school year field trips, but we will rent the sander again on Thursday. Hopefully we will be publishing "finished" wood floors on our blog next week (keeping in mind we are only working on the kitchen, pantry, and dining rooms -- that is all that is installed right now).

And you might be wondering, what does 12-grit sandpaper look like? Well, it looks like someone took a handful of rocks and glued them onto some paper. Seriously. Check out these photos!


12-grit sandpaper


12-grit sandpaper next to 36-grit sandpaper