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expensive lessons learned today:
- hard maple does not accept stain evenly. not even if you leave the grain semi-rough. not even if you condition it first. not even if you “water pop” it to bring up the grain. not even if the floor finisher you asked for advice says “sure, it’ll work.”
- never, ever, EVER be tempted to go over “just a few spots” on the floor after you’ve finished machine sanding with your finest grit paper. Those spots will fill with dark stain and look like large black earthworms crawling around beneath your feet.
- never try to refinish your floors when one of you has strep throat and the other is covered in poison ivy. bad decisions will be made. fighting will ensue. problems will multiply and appear insurmountable.
- leave well enough alone. next time, spend money on the bathroom and leave those stupid floors be.
so we’re probably going to sand everything down again and just clearcoat the maple. it’s either that or we paint it. eh. not what we wanted, not at all, but we learned the hard way that this just isn’t possible. I’m tempted to get really down about this. and really angry about spending double to correct our mistakes, and really depressed about spending another week, possibly longer, with 3 kids and half my normal living space available.
BUT we’ve done stupid stuff before (every DIYer has, I think) and we usually find a way to work together beautifully and correct it (after the blame and yelling have subsided) and take the experience along with us to the next project.
sigh. and they are so pretty from afar. up close they are a nightmare. i’d post photos but don’t have the heart to go in there right now.
thanks for the encouraging comments today ~
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you live, you learn.
(and i thought your photo in the previous post was beautiful. wtf?)
Comment by capello August 18, 2006 @ 1:39 amAw, sorry it isn’t turning out as you had hoped. Our friends put in a maple kitchen and even the contractor botched up the staining. Maple is just difficult. They had to make him redo everything. (It’s gorgeous now though.) Personally, I kind of like the light color, so I think a clearcoat would be pretty.
We’ve been tempted to refinish the wood floors under our carpet in the bedrooms because it doesn’t match the wood in the rest of the house. But every time I think about it, we just stick with the carpet, as gross as it is.
Comment by amy h August 18, 2006 @ 4:47 amOh, no! The photo was looking so beautiful! I am soooo sorry.
Comment by Bee August 18, 2006 @ 5:18 amNo, no , no! I am so sorry …I can feel the gasp. I think the clear coat on the maple will look wonderful. I know, it doesn’t give back the time taken away but it will look wonderful. Hope everyone is feeling better.
Comment by Ingrid August 18, 2006 @ 5:59 amOh no. I am so sorry. Many a time I have sat on the floor in a room and cried over something I’ll have to redo.
Hang in there. Painted floors ARE kinda cool. No?
Comment by Alicia A. August 18, 2006 @ 6:35 amI’m sure they don’t look nearly as bad as you think they do. But, I also think clearcoating the maple is a great idea. I thought they looked beautiful in the picture where they were sanded.
Boy do I hear you about the explosive DIY projects. You seem to have a good outlook about it :)
Comment by CarrieG August 18, 2006 @ 6:18 pmOh crap. It is so frustrating to make mistakes like that!
Comment by hatteLatte August 18, 2006 @ 6:21 pmI think that the natural color will look lovely.
This too will pass, my lovely….what a huge disappointment, though…I am sorry…:(
Comment by Beth August 18, 2006 @ 6:33 pmWell that sucks!
Are you sure that it will still look as blotchy with furniture on top? Maybe the furniture will cover all the blotchy bits and leave the beautiful bits exposed. Do you have a throw rug?
If not, good luck with that sander. I feel for you!
Comment by laeroport August 18, 2006 @ 6:58 pmSTINK! so frustrating… but I agree that the clearcoat will be beautiful… but why can’t things just do what we want them to! I would be crying a lot if I had to deal with this…blessings to you…
Comment by kim August 19, 2006 @ 8:10 amOh my, you are a far, far braver woman than I.
Comment by beki August 21, 2006 @ 5:50 pmWe have wood floors in our kitchen that are currently covered with tile. Yes, I want to see those beautiful floors, but I’m not ready to go there just yet.
You KNOW I feel your pain :( If only it wasn’t such a back-breaking job!
Comment by kirsty August 22, 2006 @ 3:19 am