Floored

After work over the last few weeks to patch the wood floor where needed and to extend it into the upstairs powder room, this weekend the floors were sanded and refinished.  We went with water-based versus the traditional oil-based polyurethane, because water-based is more environmentally friendly and dries faster and lighter colored.

Here are some photos of the floor before and after.

Floors after refinishing, view of the main room.

Floors before refinishing, view of the main room.

As you can see, the prior finish on the floors was much darker, and more red than now. (What’s also kind of neat is that on the picture on the left you can see the walls we took down upstairs. The staircase is behind the wall to the right. Now that the wall is gone, we are in the process of installing a banister. The newel posts and railings we are using are old and from our building, The Linden. We can’t confirm whether the newel posts and railings are original to the 1880s but we believe them to be.)

Floors after refinishing, close-up.

Floors before refinishing, close-up.

As you can see from the close-up on the left, the floors were in rough shape when we purchased our office. They had suffered some rough treatment over the years and desperately needed to be sanded. As has been true of so much in our experience during this construction, though, the bones were good. Now that it has been given some attention, the cherry looks beautiful. We have one more coat of polyurethane to go, which is being completed this afternoon, and then the floors will be finally, totally, finished.

Here is a video that shows the revamped floors, and more.