I Love the Smell of Polyurethane in the Morning

Smells like… victory. Seriously.

First coat.

The finished wood doesn’t actually look as dark as this.

Now I just gotta wait another 72 hours for it to cure. Depending on the lighting, I either really like the natural wood (no stain) look or have continued misgivings about it. Natural light: looks great. Artificial: misgivings. It’s unfair to judge until it’s all settled and done with anyway.

I’ll do some sort of floor refinishing post-mortem some time after the 72 hours are up. While I’m waiting for it to dry, I’ll probably go back into the kitchen for a day or two and see if I can get rid of the rest of the tiles and pull the sink cabinet out (the tricky part is that the pipes have grown up through the bottom of it), then it’ll be back to the living room and bedrooms. On deck there:

  • Paint prep (patching, spackling, sanding, removing plates and vents, removing light fixtures, taping, laying ground cover).
  • One coat of Kilz on every surface I can find that isn’t a floor or window.
  • Paint ceiling (flat white).
  • Paint walls (hoping to find the same green I had in NYC).
  • Paint trim (white).

That should take care of next week.

bkd

5 comments

  • telkontar

    I would have painted first so that I did not have to worry about paint dripping on my new floors.

    Mrs. Telk

  • telkontar

    I probably do. Oldest of six with diaper duty during the cloth diaper era. Mother of two, one of which needed surgery in order to stop the projectile vomit.

    Of course, if the paint fumes are strong enough, then one may not care about the cat urine smell.

  • Madaline Foglesong

    Hi! I landed here because I just finished sanding my floors in prep to stain and I have some stains to get out- I think the floors and trim of your house look a lot like my floors. Anyway! How did your use of hydrogen peroxide to remove that stain work? I have a couple of stains that sanding has only lightened up so much and I’m thinking about trying hydrogen peroxide. Thanks, I looked around your blog for the answer (nice blog!) but didn’t see how it turned out. Maybe I am missing it. Thank you!

    • bkdunn

      It was disastrous. The peroxide bleached everything it touched into an unnatural color that I couldn’t figure out how to get to blend in with the rest of the wood. If I had it to do again, I would have just kept sanding. Fortunately I only used it in a couple places, but still — sucked.