Today's post is about before we moved in though. One of the things we absolutely loved about the house was that under the drab worn out cream carpet was fabulous virgin Tasmanian Oak Floors through out. We knew if we wanted to take advantage of these gorgeous (and much more practical) hardwood floors we would need to do it before we moved in. As much as I couldn't wait to move in the thought of all that dust and constantly moving furniture around afterwards was not appealing (and lets be honest, it would have been constantly put off and probably never done). So we planned the move for a week after we got possession.
We decided to do it ourselves as really how hard could it be and it would save us a fortune, something we needed to do where possible. We figured it would only take 3 days, and then we could maybe paint and do a few other things like the dividing wall in the shed. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, we were so naive!!!
So we got the Keys at 4pm on the Friday, by 7pm on the Friday all the carpet & underlay was ripped out and about a quarter of the carpet edging (from here on referred to as Devil Spikes). I was so smug about how easy this had been, and very confident we would be finished in no time!!! It was already looking so much better, we were all very excited to get started in the morning on the prepping.
When we ripped out the carpet we found some termite damaged floor boards in one of the back rooms (we'd known this was a possibility and were very thankful it only ended up being four boards). We completely underestimated this job, Mr KaiLey started on this first thing in the morning and it took the better part of the day to finish. Nothing went smoothly...
I was in charge of removing all the Devil Spikes!!!! Arrrggghhhh Why had it been so easy the day before? I then realised the carpet in the living area had been there the longest so the Devil Spikes fell apart... Apparently they had re-done the bedrooms at some point and had double layered the damn things. Oh well, I had to crack on. It didn't take long for me to work out the best tools for the job, a wonder bar & a rubber mallet!!!
After all the Devil Spikes were gone, it was time to remove all the remaining nails, and ALL the underlay staples! Someone had obviously been very trigger happy with the staple gun, and didn't seem to follow any logical pattern. In one of the cupboards I pulled out over 60 staples from one corner! The tools for this job were a set of pliers, flat head screwdriver and claw hammer.
Then we had to nail punch every nail. This was a job for Mr KaiLey, I simply didn't have the arm strength. Now to put wood putty in all the holes.... fun fun fun. A few hours later we had the first room done and ready for sanding. ARRRGGGHHHH This really wasn't going to be as quick as we thought.
So at about 8pm we decided to finish for the day before we annoyed the neighbours too much, we still had to prep the whole living room.... We were completely exhausted but figured we would be able to get going quickly the next day, and the sanding couldn't be as hard as the prep had been.... HAHAHA We still hadn't learnt...
Mr KaiLey had already quoted and researched everything he needed, so early Sunday morning off he went to Bunnings to hire the Drum Sander & Edge Sander. Whilst he did that I organised Miss Ley (Miss Kai had escaped to a friends house overnight), made a hearty breakfast to give us the energy for the day. We had this! We were so organised and ready to go by 8am.... We were just about to get in the car to go to the house and get started when we get a call from Bunnings.... Mr KaiLey had inadvertently left the sanding disks on the counter, hmmmm we weren't going to get much done without them. So we went back to Bunnings (20 minutes in the wrong direction) to get the disks. OK no problem only a minor setback, by 10am we were at the house. We unloaded everything (OMG those drum sanders are heavy, so thankful Mr Kailey had some wood we could turn into ramps).
Mr KaiLey was in charge of the drum sander and I was to follow with the edge sander once I had finished prepping the Living Room. Can I just say the edge sander is bloody evil!!! It really didn't do a great job either (even when Mr KaiLey tried to take over and show me the correct way to do it :-P)
At 7pm that night the girls and I headed home, it was a school night and they needed to get some dinner and get to bed. We had to return the sanders by 8am the next morning to avoid paying an extra days hire, so Mr KaiLey kept going until 9pm. He managed to get everything done except some of the edges & corners. We figured we would finish off with the orbital sanders. So it was 2.5 days later and we hadn't even finished prepping the floors, OMG I am glad we gave ourselves a full week!
Mr KaiLey had to finish the rest himself as I had to work and the girls were at school. He spent Monday finishing the edges, the orbital sander worked so much better, and was a lot easier to control. By Monday afternoon he got the first coat of varnish down, WOW... It was looking amazing! All that was left was a light hand sand in between coats (ALL that was left, I am so funny) So he got another coat done on Tuesday and the final coat done on Wednesday!!! Hallelujah we were finished and just in time for the packers to come in on Thursday!!!
I can honestly say I NEVER want to do that again. My arthritis flared and I could barely walk for over a week. My hat goes off to anyone that does this as a job, you deserve every single cent you earn!!!
We don't regret a second of it though, as look at our absolutely beautiful Tasmanian Oak hardwood floors. It is a great feeling to know you did it yourself too, I definitely appreciate the beauty a lot more knowing how much blood sweat and tears went into it.
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