The first item on the kitchen renovation to-do list is the floor. We’ve removed the ugly orange carpet, peeled up the hideous vinyl tiles, and painstakingly scraped up the tar paper. What we found underneath is a beautiful quarter-sawn oak floor. *
My husband enlisted a very selfless friend to come over and help sand for 9 hours yesterday, and he made a few more passes with the orbital sander today. The floor is looking really good, other than the stain :mad:
The stain is a diamond pattern, presumably from dirt being ground down between the tiles over the years and water from mopping the floor. Sanding has lightened it considerably, but it’s still there. My husband asked for suggestions on an old house forum and someone recommended oxilac acid (I think?) to bleach the stains out. The friend who came over to help sand said we should just stain it a dark shade and try to hide the pattern. I’d prefer to use a lighter color stain, but I would be okay with something darker if that’s the only way to keep the floor.
Any suggestions, dopers? Mr Tavi told me “ask Ed Zotti”
*Sez someone on the old house forum that saw pics. I don’t know oak from pine, so I’m going on his guess. I can link to pics if anyone wants to see.
It’s oxalic acid, and if sanding didn’t work, it’s probably your last hope.
Staining darker might not work; the stain will darker the diamonds just like the rest of the floor.
If the floor is oak (do post pics), it will take a lot of abuse. You could just oil but not seal the floor, and let time and sunlight fade the stains; antique dealers make a lot of money calling damage ‘a bit of age to it’.
Note: older vinyl tiles were backed with asbestos. Sometime you should let things be.
If we don’t seal it does that leave it open to water damage? Since it’s a kitchen floor it’s inevitable that water is doing to get splashed on it. We do like the color it is now, but thought we had to seal it to protect it.
There was no way to “let things be”. The tile was under a disgusting stained and ripped carpet, it all had to come up. My husband took it up, he was careful to keep the tiles intact as much as possible because he did research beforehand and knew they might contain asbestos.
I haven’t tried oxalic acid. I do know water stains are a bear to get out. We had quartersawn oak veneer in one bedroom that had once had a sink in it. There were many dark spots due to water - uncoated oak for reasons not clear to me is unusually susceptible to water staining. Removing a sixteenth of an inch of the oak surface with a belt sander (one of the big vacuum cleaner-type models) got rid of some of the staining but not all; it remains visible to this day. I don’t find it objectionable, though. I haven’t seen your stain but have done plenty of sanding (we had pros do the floors, but I did the doors myself). In my experience, while it’s impossible to get rid of all blemishes, generally if you’re patient you can get from “looks like hell” to “has character.”
The fact that a diamond pattern remains makes me curious. If in fact this was simply dirt filtering down between the overlying tiles, it should all have sanded off - dirt doesn’t penetrate very far. This makes me think your husband and his buddy didn’t remove much material, even though they spent a long time at it. What were they using, an orbital hand sander? For something as hard as oak you really need a big belt sander. Using one of these things is no job for a novice - I’d advise getting a pro in to at least take a look at your floor before going further.
They were using a square orbital sander. He said they used one grit of sandpaper until they stopped getting sawdust, then went on to a finer grit. The stains got progressively lighter the longer they sanded, but they’re still visible.
Will post pics tonight if I can steal some computer time when I get home.
That’s what I thought. By coincidence I was browsing around the Web and stumbled across some photos of what I’m almost positive is your kitchen. I’ll bet you $20 that diamond pattern comes out with a belt sander. To repeat, you’d be smart to hire a pro to do this - it’s real easy to dig holes or otherwise mess up your floor if you don’t have experience at this kind of thing. You definitely have quartersawn oak and if it’s refinished properly you’ll wind up with a helluva floor. I could give you a lot of other advice, but first this question: Are you planning on doing any other remodeling in that kitchen? In particular, are you likely to replace or move cabinets? If so, you’d be smart to do that first - if you do it after you finish the floor, you could wind up with unfinished areas showing.
Tracked me down, eh? I didn’t want to link to that board and break the rules.
We aren’t moving cabinets but we are putting new formica on one countertop and new tile on the other. We’re also putting a new sink in.
I think we’re going to get an estimate for the sanding, which stinks because that’s all we need. We can do the staining and sealing ourselves, but if we’re hiring someone come out and sand maybe it would be worth it to just have them do the whole thing.
I wasn’t tracking you down. Like all neurotic authors, I was googling my book, and your page popped up. Links BTW are OK. Links to porn, etc., are problematic, but I think we can handle quartersawn oak.
Staining is easy - I recommend Dura Seal - but polyurethane can be tricky if you’re trying to avoid streaks and brush marks. The pros make life easier on themselves by using a foot-wide pad that you push like a dust mop. I think having the floor guys do the whole thing would be your best bet.
I wholeheartedly agree with this advice regarding putting down poly. My husband and I tried to do it ourselves, and of the many, many home improvement projects we have done ourselves, both large and small, it was the most trouble and the one where I’m most dissatisfied with the results. I SO regret it. It’s really, really worth the cost of having the pros do it.
Thanks for the advice I think we’re pretty deadset on tackling this ourselves, we bought the house with the intention of doing as much as we can with our own hands. Not to say that we won’t hire professionals in the future, but this job seems to be within our skill set. Hubby’s skill set, actually, I’m just his lovely assistant If the floor turns out to be a bust we’ll hire someone to do the floors in the rest of the house.
He applied oxalic acid twice yesterday and the stains (and the wood) are definitely lighter. In fact, we’re thinking about leaving them as they are and staining over them. If they’re visible that’s okay because they’ve lightened from ugly dark marks to neat looking pattern.
I know, I was teasing As you can see, Mr Tavi is a fan of yours. We’re convinced that you must post on that board under a fake name.
If you are deadset on doing it yourself, you can rent a hardwood floor sander from Home Depot, etc… You should end up with a beautiful flat floor with no stains, that you can refinish.
Btw…I am in awe of your (hubby’s) patience, I can’t imagine sanding a whole room by hand with an orbital sander. Wow!
I think we’re pretty deadset on tackling this ourselves, we bought the house with the intention of doing as much as we can with our own hands. Not to say that we won’t hire professionals in the future, but this job seems to be within our skill set. Hubby’s skill set, actually, I’m just his lovely assistant