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Showing posts with label Entrance Hallway. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Entrance Hallway. Show all posts

December 8, 2010

One Down...

A few weeks ago I mentioned a three-part rehab that was in store for the entrance hallway. One of those items can now be officially checked off the list. The original floors were sanded and re-finished and came out even better than we could have expected.

You might remember what the floors looked like after the tile and linoleum were pulled up.

After scraping up as much of the glue as we could, without damaging the hardwood, we left the rest to the sander. Not only was the glue picked up, but the wood was restored quite nicely.


We applied a few coats of a matte finish, and the floors look good as new. ...maybe even a little better than that.

November 16, 2010

Under the Tiles

Last week I mentioned how we had a bit of a to-do list in the entrance hallway. The first step was to pull up the tiles and see what we were dealing with underneath. We're hoping that the original floors will be in good enough shape that they can be restored.

So we got to work, and up came the tiles...only to find linoleum underneath. So...up came the linoleum. Underneath that was a thick coating of glue that had turned black.


We then got to the task of scraping up the dried up glue and pulling up the staples and nails that had been used for the sub-floor under the tiles. It was a delicate task because we needed to scrape with enough force to get the glue up, but at the same time, be sure not to scratch up the hardwood floor to deeply.


Will we be able to achieve our goal of refinishing the original hallway floor? Only time will tell.

November 11, 2010

Entrance Hallway Blues

It's hard to believe, but such a small pic reveals three pretty large problems. And when I say "three" I'm not even talking about that ugly sunflower rug. Fortunately, that rug went out with the rest of the staging furniture.

The first problem is the tiles. This photo shows a side view of the entrance hallway, but the tiles actually extend down the length of the hallway, into a bathroom on the right (if you were walking in the front door) and straight into the kitchen. The tiles look okay in this picture, but they actually were in much rougher shape in the kitchen. In fact, in a few spots, tiles had clearly been replaced as the previous owner attempted to match up the color, but apparently couldn't get an exact match, so there was a bit of variation.

The second problem is the white railings. As I've stated in an earlier post, Sandra and I both like to expose the original woodwork whenever possible. Here, its covered in several coats of paint. It's our hope that we can remove all of this paint and then refinish the original woodwork. Only time will tell how successful we can be at this particular task.

Finally, there's the stairs. Once again, we're encountering some dark stain where we would prefer a more natural color. We were able to remove the stain from the living and dining room floors and re-finish with a more natural look. We're hoping we can do the same with the stairs. It's something I've done in the past and been fairly successful with, so I'm going to see what I can do to restore these stairs. Looks like I've got to go get the belt sander.

Check back in the future. Hopefully I'll be able to give you a look at the progress soon. At the very least...there shouldn't be any sunflower rug.