Studio Floor Improvement — At Home Improvement!

Since I couldn’t completely clear the studio and do the entire floor at once, I had to do the painted floor project in stages, which made it more challenging than it needed to be. But it’s okay! I did it. As I showed you last week, I finished about 2/3 of the main room floor…

So before I started the other sections, I covered this part of the floor with paper…

The paint I used was very durable, so I didn’t worry about rolling my tables on this part of the floor. In fact, I’ve rolled tables onto the painted floor twice. But I wanted to cover it so it wouldn’t get blown away by all the sanding I had to do in the rest of the room. This section is neat and clean, and I want to keep it that way.

Once I had it covered, I moved everything in this part of the room to start with the back areas.

I sanded the rest of the main room with my hand held belt sander and 80-grit sandpaper…

There are several reasons I did not rent a floor sander for this project:

1. I know that this project will take several days, including some days (like Wednesday and Sunday) that I won’t be able to work at all, so renting a sander for the duration of the project might be worth it. cost a large amount.
2. Floor sanders are very powerful and can remove a lot from the floor. I just need a little rough up on the surface. I didn’t need all the paint and stains to be removed.
3. A large floor sander is not very useful in small areas such as closets and bathrooms, and it is also difficult to maneuver with a small back entrance. So I had to do those areas with a hand sander though.

After weighing the pros and cons of renting a floor sander, I decided to stick with my handheld belt sander. It’s a happy medium between a floor sander and a small 5-inch random orbit sander, like the one you might use to sand a table top. The belt sander is very powerful, so it gets the job done. The down side is that I have to kneel down to break the floor. That is a definite “pro” of the floor sander. You stand up to use a floor sander. But for me, kneeling down to mess with the floor is a small price to pay for avoiding the hassle of a large floor sander and avoiding the cost of renting for more than a week.

I still need to paint the back entry, which is an area that is already painted. But again, I don’t need to remove all the paint. I just had to remove any ridges where the design was painted and painted, and where the painted “carpet” met the whitewashed floor.

Sanding the bathroom floor was the hardest part simply because I had to move the toilet and the vanity out of the room completely. That can be a real pain, but it has to be done.

But it’s coming! I hope that by the end of the day today, I will have the entire floor sanded, vacuumed, cleaned, and prepped. If things go well, I might even paint it, but that might be pushing it.

As a side note, I am very excited to give this bathroom a little makeover. I will change the walls, the tile, and the color of the vanity.

I haven’t completely nailed down my plans yet because what I do with this bathroom depends on what I do with the back entry. I have to decide on that first, and then make plans for the bathroom. But the vanity color had to be changed because I felt it was very close (but not the same) to the color I would use on the studio cabinets. They will match but just enough to make it look like a mistake rather than a coordinated decision.

Speaking of back entry, I think I’ve made a decision about that. I will use wallpaper in that area, but for now, I plan to wallpaper the upper walls and wainscoting the lower walls. I think that gives them enough pattern and color, while keeping them from looking too busy (for me). They will just be busy. 😀

I also decided to put a blue ceiling in the master bedroom. I love the idea of ​​a flower garden on the main wall and a ceiling the color of the sky. But the walls are still white. So I was just toying with the idea of ​​bringing that blue to the back entrance. That’s still not a solid decision. I just want to see how it looks.