My new-old oak kitchen floor

Ok, here’s the whole story of my new kitchen floor complete with pictures (thanks to a kick in the pants from Tara):

I did NOT want carpet in my kitchen – little kids, spilled milk, ick. But here’s the lovely mauve I got with our new house.

Notice that it matches the wallpaper – also on it’s way out, but not so fast.

So I pulled up the carpet (a new experience for me) the second day the house was ours!

And then I was left with thick carpet glue everywhere. After several hours of scraping by hand, I’d made a tiny bit of progress.

Then after many, many, MANY hours scraping by hand for me, the hubby and a couple VERY dedicated friends, we started in with the drum sander. (Oh, and apparently my brother-in-law suggested that to start with, but I forgot and heard somewhere else that glue can mess up the sander, but that is apparently only if the glue is new and not old and driedout. Shoulda started with the drum sander – it took a fraction of the time.)

This shows a corner that was left to sand by hand after the drum sander and edger were used – also under the counters and radiator had to be done by hand.

Then I stained it (another thing I’d never done before) with Minwax Provincial. (I took the picture while the strip at the right was unstained to see the contrast between stained and bare wood.)

Then I put on 4 coats of polyurethane for floors. Now it looks like this.

Here’s a shot that shows the wallpaper. (The funny white spot is not there in real life. And the floor isn’t quite that dark, either.)

Here’s by the kitchen sink and cabinets. I’m thinking a bright-colored rug is in order to stand on while I wash!

And here is the doorway to the butler’s pantry so you can see the finished floor, a bit of sanded floor and the still-glue-covered part. We’re going to get linoleum for the pantry, bathroom and back entryway.

So what do you think? Should I have started smaller for my first ever home improvement project? Or at least paid attention to my brother-in-law? (Yes!) And what color linoleum? And should I take a fine grit sand paper to get a bit smoother of a finish? It’s not perfectly smooth – maybe the inexpert application of the poly? – but I’m not sure it needs anything. And I love the color. (That’s a whole other story.)

OK. I’m done. And excited because our applicances can go in this weekend so we can actually live in our new house. Finally.

(Oh, did I mention I thought refinishing the floor would take a couple days? Silly me. Two weeks.)

(Also, I’m linking this to DIY Thursday at A Soft Place to Land. Go see what everyone else has been up to!)