After finishing with the chemicals last night, Andrew and I decided that it would speed up our timeline if we sanded today instead of tomorrow. Andrew took a half day at work, and at noon we were off to Menards to rent the sander (again).
I thought I'd be doing some sanding while Andrew worked, but the hand sander we borrowed from my Grandpa ended up to be way too powerful and I quit, unfortunately not before making a small, scratched up valley along the baseboards in the guest room. So, I spent some nice down time taping up the pass-through in the kitchen so the cats can't escape into the hallway and back bedrooms and following Andrew around with a camera because I don't want to miss a "before and after" opportunity. The number of photos on my camera now is 148, and I think there was a whopping 68 in the download before. I'm quite the documentarian, though I'm probably harboring false hope that someday, someone will find these photos remotely entertaining or useful.
Anyway, while I pretended to work, Andrew went to town with the sander. Lo and behold, the sanding process actually went the way it was supposed to. By 5pm, Andrew was finished with all three sanding grits and our floors looked amazing. They're clearly 85 years old, but they look miles better than they did two weeks ago.
Andrew must have been tired afterward, because I talked him into Chili's for dinner. The reasoning I used was that we haven't been eating healthy for two weeks, so why start now? We looked really gross in our work clothes, so we decided not to wait for a table but rather get take-out and went to a park where we sat by a pond and had a picnic as Andrew tried to look for people frolfing (or disc golfing, but frolfing is so much more fun to say).
After the picnic, we went to our new favorite place: Tropical Sno. I'm a Tropical Sno snob - I only like the one that's in the nice, lower-traffic area in the higher-income neighborhood. And, this Tropical Sno offers an amazing deal. For $12, you get a heavy plastic cup that you can refill all summer for $1. Since they ran out of this year's cup, they started selling next year's, so this thing is good until the end of next summer. To make it even sweeter, they're open until September 19th, and this location is steps away from where I work. Andrew and I decided that I needed a back-to-school present. Right now, my Tropical Sno cup may just be my most prized piece of dishware. And, in case you're curious, Andrew had the red raspberry and margarita flavor (my suggestion, even though I can't stand raspberries) and I had my ultimate favorite combo, canteloupe papaya coconut. I only mention this because the woman in line behind found our combinations to be quite intriguing, and I figure any reader of this blog would want to know, too.
When we got home, we started staining. I'd tested a section in my closet before we left and was pleasantly surprised. I can't believe what a difference staining makes. It doesn't cover all the wood's imperfections, but it does cover most of them, and the color of the oak is very rich and beautiful. However, now that we've finished both rooms and the hallway, there's still a little more of a yellowy hue than we were shooting for. The rest of the house is more of a cherry walnut stain, so that's what we wanted to achieve for the floors. We plan to do just one more coat tomorrow morning (and if that doesn't make the color right, we'll just live with it as is) and spend the rest of the afternoon by the pool, which by design is located right next to the Tropical Sno - bliss!
And, if all goes according to plan (yes, I know it never does), we'll be finished with staining by 11, we'll wait 24 hours and do our first coat of poly after church on Sunday, finish with our 3 coats by Sunday night, and we'll be moving furniture in by Monday when Andrew gets home from work. I don't think I've ever looked forward to a Monday this much in my life.
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