bowie's new (old) floor

I think every owner of an older home knows about the "hardwood floor dance." The hardwood floor dance occurs at a very special time... You begin by pulling up a corner of nasty, stained, musty carpeting. You get a little peek of wooden loveliness under it. You do a preliminary squeal of joy. It is a bit precautionary at this point. You are not sure what lurks beneath the rest of the carpet. After hour upon hour of pulling up gross carpeting and pad, and removing tack strips and staples with a pair of vise gripes and a flat head screwdriver, you finally get to see the big picture. Hopefully the floor revealed is under repairable condition... This is when you bust out the "hardwood floor dance."

Enjoy the "hardwood floor dance" while you can. Because soon, the realization of more hours of hard work sets in. This begins the "dust everywhere from sanding" and "sore knees from crawling around the floor with a paint brush" phases.

In Bowie's room, I am now one coat of matte-finish polyurethane away from a finished floor. (JOY!!!)

While planning the color scheme for Bowie's room, I knew right away I wanted to do a dark floor. I think Steven might have died a little on the inside when I picked the "Ebony" stain from Home Depot. In my mind, I see pale blue walls and a deep, dark floor. Steven wasn't on board with the idea. And while the stain was wet, it was VERY VERY DARK. But after two coats of stain, I got the rich, deep color I wanted, yet you can still see the grain of the wood. I also got a nice patina-look due to the variation of the oak. It doesn't look like a fresh, new floor. It looks like it could have been original to the house, if they did actually have ebony stain in the early 1900s. Which they did not.

Freshly sanded and scrubbed with TSP-substitute:

Two coats of Ebony oil-based stain and two coats of matte polyurethane later:

It is a difficult floor to photograph, but in person is quite lovely. One more coat of poly, and some time to dry, and I will begin covering the floor with protective butcher paper for the priming of the walls!