Our Journey Begins
In 2002, my husband and I bought a small Rambler that was originally built in 1952. When we first bought the house, there was carpet throughout. After we'd lived in it for a couple of years, my husband and I both thought that we probably had hardwood floors underneath the carpet in 3/4 of the house. We thought, if we uncovered it, we'd be able to give our home more value. We took the plunge and ripped up the carpet. We found what we thought we would, but you won't believe the shape it was in. This is how we renewed it.

Linoleum Glue - Before

Linoleum Glue - After
How It Was Done
So we started with pulling up the carpet in our hallway and family room. What we first saw was that half the floor in the family room had linoleum glue stuck to it, and the other half was painted white. We also saw that two sections had been removed and replaced with plywood. Yikes! We had our work cut out for us alright. The amazing thing was that it only took us about a week to finish the project. My husband had some vacation time, so we used that time to finish our job.The first thing we did was remove all the carpet staples. Why the former tenant didn't use tacks I have no idea. Remember, we had carpeting throughout the house when we bought it. The next thing we had to do was remove the linoleum glue. We tried using a sander, but that used way to much sandpaper. We had no choice but to use a scraper and some razor blades to remove it.
The next step was removing the white paint on the other half. That wasn't so bad, we just rented a sander and sanded it off. Once we removed the white paint, the next step was sanding the whole thing. We ended up renting the sander for the weekend. About 6 hours of work a day later, the entire floor was sanded. The final step was buying and applying stain and sealer. Two coats of stain and two coats of sealer later, we had beautiful, red oak, hardwood floors. We couldn't really do anything about the two sections that had plywood, so we just bought two rugs and covered them up. The results were amazing! Although, it only took us a week, it was by no means easy. If you have the money, and you're not as stubborn as my husband, you might want to hire someone to do it for you. On the other hand, if you want something you can be proud of at the end, you might want to do what we did.

Before - White Paint

After - White Paint
Hardwood Floor Facts
Hardwood floors were standard in houses built in the 1950's. Just about every house at the time had them. Hardwood floors are very sturdy and wonderful to look at. Any house with a decent hardwood floor in it has extra value.Nowadays, you can buy Laminates that look like actual hardwood flooring, but if you ask me, there's no substitute for a real hardwood floor. I look at mine every day and marvel at it's beauty, and what we made out of the mess we started with.

Before - General

After - General
Recent blog posts about Wood floors
- Do you Want Pergo Wood Flooring? | St James Real Estate News
- Many people love the look of hardwood flooring, but cringe at the expense and maintenance they require. One of the great alternative products on the market is.
- 3 Steps to Finding the Best Age Spot Hand Cream ยป Staining ...
- Between hardwood floors and furniture pieces, the latter tend to be changed much more often. If youve had hardwood floors for a while, you know firsthand the design or aesthetic problems that come up whenever you change your furniture ...
- wood floor guru: Flooring in Focus Part III: Tuscan Big Earth ...
- wood floor guru is the definitive blog of all things hardwood flooring. If you need info on wood floors, floor sanding and sealing, sports floors or installation tips please ask! It is written by staff of one of the largest, ...
- Nails in my hardwood floor - Philadelphia Speaks Forum ...
- In my "new to me" house is there are finishing nails in the hardwood floors (original floors). They are not very noticeable upstairs b/c the finish is dark but downstairs the finish is.
Maintainence And Installation
Bona X Hardwood Floor Cleaner - Gallon Refill
Amazon Price: $25.00 (as of 12/05/2009) ![]()
List Price: $19.99
Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Bona Kemi WM710013273 Hardwood Floor Clean Kit
Amazon Price: $25.99 (as of 12/05/2009) ![]()
List Price: $29.99
Usually ships in 24 hours
Bona X WM700051171 Hardwood Floor Cleaner - 32oz Bottle
Amazon Price: $13.99 (as of 12/05/2009) ![]()
List Price: $7.99
Usually ships in 24 hours
Visitor's Comments
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- Mickie_G Mickie_G Oct 14, 2009 @ 10:54 am
- Nice work here on the floor and the article.
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- Evelyn_Saenz Evelyn_Saenz Sep 26, 2009 @ 5:13 pm
- What a wonderful job you have done restoring your hardwood floors.
I love the hardwood floors in my 1830's house in Vermont. They are easy to clean and don't show the dirt like the white tiles in my Florida 1980's house.
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- Jamee Jamee Sep 2, 2009 @ 11:53 am
- We just torn up our carpet last night! We had no idea what shape we'd find the original hardwood in. Fortunately, aside from a few little surface stains and some small gouges needing repair, they're in great shape! A little cleaning and polishing, and I think we'll be good to go. Thanks for the information on your project- very helpful indeed!
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- HorseAndPony HorseAndPony Aug 24, 2009 @ 12:58 pm
- Very Nice! We just moved into a fixer-upper. It's really The Money Pit. Hope to start our hardwood floors soon. Thanks for the info.
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- GrowWear GrowWear Aug 13, 2009 @ 4:55 pm
- Carpet. Yuck! Bring on the hardwood floors. We do a lot of our own stuff, too. Feels so good to step back and look at a completed project! ...Congratulations on your Giant Squids Summer School graduation. :)
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A Virtual Tour Of My House
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The Confederate Room
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This is the last in a series of theme room lenses I'm doing. This one is about our master bedroom. The decorating ideas for this room came from my husband. He thinks anything having to do with The Confederacy is very cool. Don't really know why, beca...
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The Wolf Room
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This is going to be about the way we decorated our living room. Our living room has a real "cabin in the woods" feel to it, so we made the best of what it already looked like to decorate it with a wolf theme. Let me describe our living room for you....






