I finally started working out on the hallway floor and home gym. Since I decided to use foam mat flooring in the home gym and stop the process of cleaning the hardwood flooring in that room, that means I never have to waste time and money renting the big drum sander because I just need to sand the little hallway. That’s a job I can do with my hand holding belt sander.
Since this floor has been sitting here unfinished for over a year, I have two areas that need extra attention. The one where Cooper tapped a liter of blue paint I used in the guest room, and the one where I tapped a liter of polyurethane.
In both areas, I think the best way to handle this is to dry the paint and polyurethane completely, and see if I can get it off the floor. I know if I try to clean it when it’s wet, the more I wipe it off and make more mess.
That’s pretty good for most paint. Once it is completely dry, most of it will quickly transfer to a large layer. But then it left the floor in the bottom stained blue.
(Note: If you’re reading this post on any website other than Addiction 2 Decoration, that means you’re reading a site that stole my content. I ask that you consider joining me on my real blog by clicking here.)
I thought the polyurethane spill could easily get up on the 36-grit parchment paper that was in my belt sander.
I can no longer be wrong. That 36-grit paper barely scratched it, much less scratched any of it. So I tried two different floor scrapers. That also didn’t work. Finally I had to use a small pry bar and hammer and chip the polyurethane a little each.
So learned the lesson. It is not a good idea to leave the wood floor unfinished for more than a year, especially in a high traffic area, and if it is outside an enclosure that has been built and is often used to store items. tools, paint, and so on. Yes, I know that, and I still do it.)
I got all the polyurethane, and it was just fine after sanding.
However, the area where the paint spilled is a different story. So I can use any input you can get here. So far, I’ve only put it on 36-grit paper. I still have 60, 80, and 100 to go. It is very possible that after all the sanding, it will disappear, or most of it will disappear. But that’s a gamble, and there are definitely no guarantees.
So if there’s any way to get it now, before I do the rest of the sanding, I’d rather do that. I don’t like the idea that the sand in this one area is more than the other floor.
In other floor news, foam mat flooring for the home gym has arrived! I took out a few pieces and put them together just to see what it looked like, and I really loved it. And obviously Felicity did too.
In reading your comments about foam flooring, one of the issues that most of you are warned about is the floor tiles that separate under heavy use, especially Matt’s wheelchair that surrounds the floor. . (Side note: Matt has an electric wheelchair that travels easily over grass, dirt, and gravel, so a thin foam floor won’t be hard for him, but his wheelchair can be hard on the foam floor .)
That’s what I thought. Carpet installers use tape on the back of the carpet to fix the seams, and when it’s done, you can’t see the seam, and the seam allowance is evenly spaced. Can’t I do something like this?
I thought I could use something like duct tape, one-sided carpet tape (if there is such a thing), or any other wider and thicker one-sided tape to fix the seams in the tiles. As I put a tile in place, I can drop a strip of tape under the edge, glue the side up, and then move the next tile on the tape to fix the seam.
Isn’t it? Is there a reason not to act? I’ve never in my life ever had a tile floor tile, but I know many of you. So you can tell me if there is a reason not to act. It’s very possible that I have something missing, but for me it will work perfectly.
And finally, can we talk about the “floor” part of my front porch for a minute? When I finished on the porch in September 2018, it was like this…
See how dark and beautiful the color of the cedar boards is? I used Thompson’s Penetrating Timber Oil in a semi-transparent mahogany color.
Well, now like this…
I’m not so unintentional that I think an outdoor wooden balcony finish will last forever. But what I didn’t expect was something everywhere like snails and slugs that caused such a problem in the finish I chose. Do we see all the lines going around the whole place?
That’s true from snails and slugs crawling on the balcony and hand rails.
I mean, that’s crazy, isn’t it? I know that a finish can be bad or have natural wear after two and a half years of Texas sun, rain, an accidental snow storm, and so on.
So obviously I need to remodel / restore my porch this year, but I don’t think I will ever use Thompson’s Penetrating Timber Oil again. If you are using a product on your balcony or deck with consequences, and that stands up to the violent abuse marketed by snails and slugs crawling on it, please let me know!