We refinished our 100 year old floors!

Why didn’t we do this years ago?!

We refinished our 100 year old floors! One of the things we loved about our house when we first saw it were the original hardwood floors. We thought the floors had such potential to be beautiful! Although they were very beat up, discolored, worn, scratched, splattered and faded, we could still envision the potential with a simple floor refinishing. But guess what, turns out refinishing a floor is expensive and time consuming, lol! Fast forward 3 years and we still had the same beat up, rough, discolored floors. Also, that awful old vinyl in the kitchen (you can check out our kitchen makeover here).

After kicking ourselves for not just springing to do the re-finish prior to moving in (if you’re buying a house that needs the floors refinished, just do it! Prior to moving in…do it.) we started saving up our money to hire a professional when the time was right. I know many of you out there will laugh and wonder why we didn’t just rent a sander and watch some youtube videos and just do it. Well…with 3 young kids running around, keeping dust contained and kids out of work zones and my husband working non-stop on the weekends to get it done just didn’t sound fun.

The perfect timing

This winter we went on a little getaway to visit my parents in FL and thought it might just be the right time to have some professionals refinish the floor while we’re out of the house. It took a little convincing to get Jeff on board (he had to tear out the vinyl floors within just a few days!), but the stars aligned and the company with the best quote was able to fit us in while out of town! My husband got to work right away tearing out the vinyl flooring in the kitchen, hoping that there would be hardwood under there. Guess what?! There was! It was very rough looking, but was able to be beautifully refinished!

What we found under all of that ugly vinyl!

Find the right company

We worked with the flooring company while out of town. They kept us updated on the progress and sent pictures of stains and finishes. It was a little scary not seeing it in person, but in the end we were so glad we made the last minute decision to get them done while out of town. We came home to the most beautiful floors!

There were quite a few spots that needed patched. There was literally cardboard stapled into some of the patched holes that we lived with for 3 years. We also had 4-5 spots that were covered with plywood. Those weren’t inexpensive to fix, but the results were so good! It’s funny when you live with something for so long, you don’t even notice how bad it is anymore until it’s fixed!

Our floors throughout the dining room, hall and living room are red oak. The flooring in the kitchen is douglas fir. I really love the modern, clean look of light wood. We decided to go with the lightest possible color. We didn’t use any stain, so the color is as close to all natural as possible. The flooring company did use a sealer with a bit of white in it to lighten them up even more. I really wanted to avoid shades of orange, as they were VERY orange before. I am so glad we sprung for the natural oak. Just beautiful!