Mistakes to learn from, #1 Bedroom Floors

Like any do it yourself home improvement project we have run into our fair share of Oop’s and setbacks. I don’t like to linger on the mistakes but to learn from them instead but I do want to touch base with the idea of remembering so that we don’t repeat them and hopefully somebody else can learn from them and avoid making the same ones.

Mistake #1 – Wood floors in the bedrooms.



Two of my workers



There are two bedrooms upstairs that are connected by a small hallway. In one of the bedrooms we had taken the carpet out about 15 years ago and finished the wood floor for my grandmother, the other room we had just ripped up the carpet that weekend. We did everything you are supposed to do, we rented a sander to bring them both to bare wood status and had the same two people do both rooms staining and wiping them. But unfortunately something went wrong, one room turned out a perfect Dark Mahogany color the other turned out almost black and splotchy. We tried adding more color to the lighter room and stripping some color from the other room but in the end the foreman ended up just sanding room #2 back down to bare wood and starting again. While there is still a difference in colors it turned out much better the 2^nd time.

Half way between the two coats

Master bedroom after finished and sealed

We aren’t really sure what caused the difference, one opinion is the can of stain didn’t get mixed enough in the 2^nd room, another is the wood that had been covered by carpet drank up the stain easier than the wood that had been exposed already, but whatever it was it put us back over a week and reminded us to go slowly and don’t take anything for granted.