The wood floors were installed in the foyer, hall and office. We ordered them from Authentic Pine Floors. It’s wide plank, various widths, lots of grain and nail holes. Jason said they told him all it needs is light sanding and 2 coats of oil. It’s a Danish Oil - a combination of stain and protective coating, but doesn’t have the shine and slickness of polyurethane.

So last weekend, we rented a drum sander and a hand sander on Saturday. The hardware store recommended 3 kinds of sand paper, so we had a 60, 80 and 100 grit. We took them but didn’t think we would need. But Jason started with the 80 and realized we’d need to start with the 60 because it was still rough. So, he would do the drum sander on everything and then go back with the hand sander to do the edges that the drum wouldn’t reach and repeat - 3 times! So we’re learning as we go I guess. I guess by “light sanding” they meant that you didn’t need to start with the 30 grit paper that’s standard - but a lighter grit. We took back the sanders on Sunday and rented a polisher for the oil. But, we started to see round marks on the floor from the sanders, so we ended up sanding most of the floor by hand before we started. But when we were done, the floors looked beautiful and felt nice and smooth.

Onto the polishing - the bottle of oil had different languages and the closest we could read was UK. We were supposed to roll on with a paint roller, let sit for 20 minutes, sponge off excess while working into the wood, polish with a yellow pad and then a white pad. Jason started rolling on the oil and it looked black. We were concerned about the color because the woman Jason ordered from said it was a light brown. But we assumed it just needed to be buffed off and it would lighten. It looked even more drastic because the floor was such a light color to begin with. We waited our 20 minutes and then both of us got down on the floor, kneeling in the oil and began to sponge until it was dry. We only had a white pad for the polisher, so we started polishing with that. It didn’t seem to be lightening very much though. So Jay went to Home Depot and got every color of pad - except yellow. I guess that’s just a European thing. I continued to polish while he was gone and it was lightening up a bit. It just took a long time. We decided to try the green and that took a little off. The pads were a little different size though, so it was a bit of playing to try to get the pads in the right place. It was 10:00 at night by that point, so we decided to finish the next night.

We did the rest of the office the next night and this time, used a green pad and then white, but it looked darker then the other side. We were starting to like the dark color as we got used to. It takes 3 days for the oil to completely dry, so we weren’t sure what the final color would look like. We were supposed to have the floor finished Tuesday because they were bringing in the appliances and plumbing, so we decided just to cover them up and finish later because we’d never get it done in time. Jason later checked with Authentic Pine and the oil we got was a dark brown, so it was definitely darker than we thought. We couldn’t decide if we wanted to resand and do it lighter or leave it dark, but I think we’re going to leave it dark like the doors and cabinets. But that will be a separate project because there is so much time and equipment involved. And we only got 1 coat done and it needs 2! So we need to do it all again - roll, wait, sponge, polish and polish again. It’s no wonder you cannot find any kind of oil in the store for a floor and everyone we speak to has never heard of putting oil on the floor. It’s a long process…