What was I thinking?

Minneapolis has been rainy and cold the past few days. However, it really screwed up my staining last weekend. Let me rephrase that- I screwed up the staining last weekend. So I don't know if I posted about this yet, but I decided to sand the last unrefinished baseboard in the dining room, the archway leading into it, the fireplace and the window next to it. Yeah- quite a bit of work but I am definitely a pro at this point, not to toot my own horn or anything (toot).

I stained all of the woodwork and it typically needs to dry about 6-8 hours in good drying condition and 24 hours in cold or damp weather. I had a few drinks with some friends last night, came home at 10:00pm and decided to put the first coat of poly on before bed. It's not horrible but in some places alot of the stain came off and it's streaky. Shit. Now I have to resand those areas. I am so bummed. No more working after drinking! Here are some before pictures of the sanded area.


I'll put up some after pictures once my mistake and the poly is complete.

Check out how great our landscape is looking:



Since the weather was so bad this weekend Quentin installed a garbage disposal rather than working on the fence. However the majority of the fence is framed. We're getting there! We also have a new foster dog. His name is Simon and he is so cute. He follows me everywhere and always wants to sleep on me. He's sooo cute. Here is a photo of him with Tito and Roscoe when we we're having nice weather last week.

I'm offically beat!

Last weekend we were very productive. Maybe too productive if there is such a thing. We started our weekend off by sanding the front door and starting to sand the trim around the windows (this is on the front sun porch). I started caulking around windows to prepare for this extremely cold winter that we are being told about (can't wait!). Then, on Sunday, we decided it was time to start gutting the guest bedroom. We are redoing the hard wood floors and I just really want the major demolition to be finished before so that we aren't dragging this stuff through the house.

So here are the only before photos I could find. These are from the day we got our keys to the place:


Don't you love those great built in dressers? Hahah. I think wood paneling was the cheap easy way for guys to 'refinish' a room back in the 70's.

here is another random:


All of the wood paneling and dropped ceiling along with tiles are now gone. I have to take some photos tonight when I get home and I'll post them tomorrow. The room looks soooo much better. Even gutted. Sad.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. We also bought a new light for the office and changed out all of the ourlets so they are clean and white. Well now there is a short somewhere and half the lights are out upstairs. What a friggen mess. TG for my maintenance guy. He's going to stop by tonight.

A little excited.

We had a fun visit with some friends last night, who are also fellow house rehabbers/ bloggers. We had been planning on paying someone to sand and redo our hardwood floors. The upstairs hall and office alone was going to cost $825. A little pricey but it needed to be done. I've never really wanted to tackle a sanding project because I've always been warned I would sand too deep and could really mess up my hard wood. After speaking with them it sounds like this is actually a project that we are going to take on. Not only will we be sanding the office and hall... We will also be resanding the living room and dining room. How ambitious, right?

The only problem is that we won't be able to put the furniture on the floors for about 7 days after sanding, which isn't much of a problem. We'll just have to fins a place to stay for a week. This is going to be a big- FUN- project. I'm excited! The hand sanding of our stairs starts either this weekend or next weekend.

It's more work than I thought

Sorry I haven't written anything for awhile. I don't have anything to blog about. Who knew sanding a buffet would be so time consuming. I'm not even going to post any pictures because our progress would bore you to death.

We stripped the wood inside the doors on the buffet to try and save some time sanding. It was a good idea, huge gobs of black goo came up from the wood. I'm assuming it was dirt and oil over time. Unschlacked wood absorbs oil over time so my guess it just got gross. Anyhow, Hopefully within the next 2 weeks I'll have something great for you.

I'd like some new stain with a side order of shine

So this weekend I began sanding the buffet, what a task. Eventually all of the trim is going to need sanding and stain as well. The current stain on a majority of the wood work is a darker walnut. It's something that doesn't necessarily need to be completed immediately but something that would make a HUGE difference. Of course there are paint splatters, scratches andscrapes throughout. There also isn't much of a shine to it.

I want to get all of the big messes done in the first year or so, so why not just begin the sanding now? Here is where the problem comes in. I am stumped on what color of stain to use on the wood. Should I do a light cherry, a dark cherry? The possibilites are endless. I want a deep dark rich red, but then again a medium cherry might be nice. Does anyone have any suggestions?

I may just end up going with a dark cherry stain to keep the woodwork looking classic, yet giving it some vibrance. I'll post some pictures of the work in progress very soon.