Smooth as a Baby's Butt

Our buyer broker rocked. When we first started looking for a new home, we knew we wanted to use a buyer broker--a real estate agent who only represented buyers, not sellers. After an initial bad experience with another agent, we were lucky to find Joel Epstein of North Shore Buyer Brokers. Joel's company offers a 20% rebate on their commission--which means that after we closed we received a check for a couple of thousand dollars. How many real estate agents offer that? Very cool.

So what did we do with that money? I guess we could have applied it to the first mortgage payment, but that didn't sound fun. After a short pow-wow session, we decided that the best use of the bonus funds would be to put it toward sanding and refinishing the floors.

Some of the rooms had carpeting, others were in desperate need of repair. Between the two units, there is 2100 square feet or so of floor space--and we wanted to sand and refinish the entry stairwell as well. After reading other house blogs I knew that we were probably capable of doing the task ourselves, but it would no doubt take us a really long time to get all of that done--and it wouldn't be anywhere near as good as what a professional could do for us. It was an easy decision, really.

All of our furniture and possessions are in the basement of The Box House, so this is the best possible time to work on the floors. In addition to being in desperate need of a good sanding, there were several damaged areas of flooring as well. The company we chose brought in wood to match what we already had. While the pieces are as thick as the 80-year-old floors in place, the planks are much, much shorter. We were told by each of the floor companies we interviewed that the wood you get nowadays is not of the same quality available to previous generations. You can't easily get 15-foot planks. The contractors brought in a pile of short replacement boards, but promised us they would blend in well.

Replacement pieces for the damaged portions of the floor.

The following sets of pictures show the floors as we first saw them, and what they looked like after being sanded and repaired.

Floor one, middle bedroom. There were several damaged boards near the wall, the longest of which was 15 feet.

Here is the same patch of floor repaired and sanded. The contractors left as much of the original boards as possible, removing only the damaged bits. If I didn't know better, I would not have guessed this was the same floor.

This is a close up of floor one's dining room. It looks like an attempt was made to replace previously damaged floor boards, but the repairs were not stained to match and are themselves quite old. I am not sure when these repairs would have been made.

The same section of dining room showing the repairs. Again, I think they blend in really well, even with the shorter boards.

We knew that we wanted a stain that would look traditional and yet would show the amazing grain of old-growth forest wood. We asked for something in the "medium" range that would compliment the baseboards and other trim. What we settled on was Special Walnut, made by Minwax. It's the bottom sample in the image below. It has a touch of red to it, and really makes the woodgrain jump out at you.

The contractors will be at The Box House for another few days as they continue to sand and repair the floorboards. It will be a week or more before the final coats of poly are applied and have had time to cure--and only then we can think about bringing our furniture upstairs.

I can't believe how much better the floors look already; the final results should be nothing short of miraculous. All I can say is "Thanks, Joel!" I'm not sure we would have done the floors like this without the rebate.

Two More Flooring Contractors Visit the Box House

In our continuing quest for floor sanding options, we had two more contractors come in for an estimate in hopes of finding a midway point between the previous bids. Both of the companies that came in were top-rated on Angie's List, with what seemed like reasonable prices and lots of A+ reviews.

We liked the first guy quite a lot; he seemed to know his stuff and answered all our questions. He was here for about 15 minutes, and gave us a quote that seemed pretty decent. We liked that he could provide that on spot without having to go back to his office and crunch numbers.

The second guy provided more of a "presentation," explaining a bit about the sanding process and what we can expect as a result. He even had this nifty little laser tool for measuring rooms, rather than a standard tape measurer. (I have got to get one of those!) He brought a color chart, and based on the samples, I think we like the DriFast Special Walnut by Bona. It's an oil-modified quick drying stain. It's not too dark, not to light, and has a reddish cast to it.

This contractor also discouraged us from doing too much. The floors in the upstairs unit had been recently sanded by the Previous Owners, but we're not particularly happy with the results. He cautioned us that there is a limited number of times you can resand floors, so if we can live with it, that's what he would recommend, thus saving us some money. But he did also say he could probably buff those floors rather than fully sand them, and stain them a color we want rather than the yellowish color it is now. We'll most likely do that; as we will have to rip out the remaining carpet in the bedrooms and sand those rooms, I'd like all the floors to all match.

Most contractors have recommended doing only two coats of polyurethane, and this guy was no different. When we asked about a third coat, explaining that we have a dog and will soon have cats, too, he said he could do it, but it would not be the best use of our money. Then he told us that the stain coat is a sealant coat, and that the more top coats you have, the easier it will be to detect traffic patterns over time, as it will wear much differently. He said the coats are good for only 5 to 7 years anyway, and that we can always just buff the surface and reapply extra layers when we felt it was necessary. He was the only contractor to tell us that.

He did seem a bit concerned about the damaged floorboards in the downstairs dining room. He asked permission to lift one out to inspect the damage, thinking that it was termites. (Yikes!) It's only a few boards, and they look almost dry rotted. He was able to break a piece out pretty easily. He kept asking us if we had had the building inspected before purchasing it, which of course we had, and by someone who knows termites pretty well. I'm not sure what caused the damage, but I doubt it was insects. The building is solid brick, the foundation is concrete for 2/3 with brick above the ground, where the basement windows are. There's no exposed wood, and these floorboards are in the center of the house. Even so, after the contractor left we went into the basement to examine it from below. The great thing about the Box House is that much of its bones are visible or easily accessible. We pulled aside some of the ceiling panels in the basement and looked at the underside of the floor from below. Nothing.

So, now we're waiting for the last guy's quote to roll in, and will hopefully be able to make a decision by Monday.

The Bids Are In...

We've received the second quote for the floor sanding, and gasped at the cost--it was more than twice the estimate we received from the first contractor. It sounds like they'll do an excellent job, particularly in repairing the spots in Mom's unit that will really need to be repaired, but still...

So, it looks like I'll be setting up a few more contractor appointments to see if I can find a price that's somewhere in between the two estimates. It's off to Angie's List for recommendations.

Floor Sanding Options

Today we had a couple of flooring contractors come to the Box House to give us estimates on what it would cost to sand and refinish the floors in both units, as well as the front entry stairwell.

The floors in the main rooms of the top unit (living room, dining room, entryway) were recently "done," but I'm not sure if it was a "professional" or one of the Previous Owner's family members. In any case, he or she didn't bother going under or behind the radiators. The wood there is quite dark, while the rest of the area appears to have only a thin coat of varnish over bare wood. (The stairs are the same way. They have pools of darker stain in the corners, but the rest of the tread is quite light.) The three bedrooms upstairs are covered in ancient carpet.

Living Room of the Top Floor Unit. Sure, it may look good at a quick glance, but what you don't see is how the floor's only protected with a very thin layer of varnish. We also want to get it back to the original color, which is a little darker.

In the downstairs unit, the floors hadn't been sanded at all. Most of the floor downstairs is in decent shape--certainly better than many of the rental units I lived at in my younger days--but there are several boards that will have to be removed and replaced due to previous damage. Boards near a radiator in the bedroom off the kitchen appear to have water damage, and there are holes in the floor of the dining room. There's also a large dark stain we believe to be cat urine, but from what the contractors told us and what I've read on other house blogs, we may be stuck with that unless we replace those boards, too.

Both contractors who stopped by had been recommended by our buyer's agent. J.E. had previously recommended a mortgage broker and a lawyer who we were very pleased with, so we're willing to start with his recommendations here.

The first guy gave us an excellent price, one we can certainly live with, and even said he'd rip out and haul away the gawd-awful carpeting and replace the damaged boards for free. His quote included two layers of varnish; if we wanted more, it would cost more. But even then, it seemed a good price. However, there is a major language barrier and he was only here about 10 minutes or so. I'm not entirely convinced he really saw the full scope of the project, and I'm not entirely sure what we'd be getting. For example, it was difficult to convey that we wanted the floors to be a color complimentary to the rest of the trim.

The second contractor was here for 45 minutes, and she went over every room in detail, discussing which boards should be replaced, measuring everything with her tape measurer, giving us a bit of history of old floors. (The most interesting thing I learned is that they are no longer able to get wood flooring at the same length as was commonly installed 80 years ago. One of the floorboards that needs to be replaced is over 15 feet long; they'll cut only the bad section out at a length that can blend in easily, but leave the rest in place.) She's to send us a full proposal by Monday. My gut tells me it won't be as good as the other, probably nowhere near as good. She's talking about having two crews out here for upwards of two weeks. I'm sure the floors will look spectacular, but will we be able to afford it?

There's always the option of doing it piecemeal, one unit at a time as we can afford it, but right now we have all of our stuff in the basement, and it would be easy to work on the floors. The other option is to do it ourselves. *Shudder*