our white stained wood floors
I was sitting in my living room with a friend talking about how our wood floors needed to be refinished. With 5 kids and lots of their friends running in and out on them, they had taken a beating. I was asking her for advice on a few minor updates I was hoping to do in the living room. She looked at me and said, “You aren’t really going to be happy until your floors are whiter.” And that was all it took…one other person that recognized I wanted white floors and affirmed it! Much appreciated Lori.
Thankfully, Chris is usually supportive of any of my house ideas. He knows I spend the majority of my days in our home and he wants it to be a place that I can express myself, as well as, be a refuge for our family and others.
The original plan was for us to refinish the floors ourselves because that is just how I operate. If there is remote chance I can do it myself, then I am going to do it. Chris, well, he feels the opposite. If it can be hired, we should hire pros. I feel like most DIY people marry another DIY person. That is not the case for us.
For our anniversary, we gave each other the perfect gifts. I got white stained floors and he got professionals to tackle the project. We hired Floors By George. It is a local company owned by Chris’ lifelong friends. When the crew arrived and began sanding, Chris and I both were grinning. Best anniversary presents ever. We are so romantic.
I can’t give you details on HOW we did the floors since we didn’t do them. The white oak floors were sanded and then a white stain was brushed on, then rubbed off. There were 3 coats of an incredibly durable water-based polyurethane finishing it off. Originally, I thought I wanted more white, but I am so happy we did not go any whiter. The wood grain really shows and dirt doesn’t.
We’ve been talking about updating our floor and door trim. Since we were refinishing the floors, it was a perfect time to start tackling that project too. We did get an estimate from another company to do it for us, but it was SO MUCH more than what could do ourselves.
We spent $140 (we were quoted over $1000). We started with the living room and kitchen. We’ll slowly go through the rest of the house updating trim.
For our trim we used:
- 1×6 primed mdf boards for baseboards
- 1×4 primed mdf boards for the door trim (top board has a 1 inch overhang on each side)
It is incredible what a difference updating the trim made to the whole room. I can’t wait to tackle the rest of the house now.
Before & After
The biggest thing I would hear from others when I mentioned wanting light floors was related to cleaning. I sweep our kitchen/living room a couple times a day. We don’t live in a massive house and basically spend the majority of our days in a 500 sq ft space (the kitchen and living room). The lighter floors have not changed how often I sweep or how dirty our floors look. I am SO THRILLED with them. Our house is brighter and they just make me happy to look at. I can’t say enough good about Floors by George and my new pretty white stained floors!
