Check that out! That is new flooring going down in the kitchen. New, beautiful, oak flooring--although, part of it isn't "new" at all. More on that later.
Dakota started laying the floor last weekend, after spending the previous weekend sanding down the subfloor. He rented a big belt sander from the hardware store, and spent a day scraping and sanding the subfloor until it was smooth, clean and ready for the next step. Here's Nigel enjoying the sanded subfloor.
Last weekend, the real floor started going down. It's red oak, to match the floors in the rest of our house. Most of the flooring was actually made from the old oak cabinet doors that were in our previous kitchen. Dakota had this brainstorm a while back, and I got really excited about it because reusing the old doors is both money-saving and environmentally friendly.
Cutting and milling down the cabinet doors and then adding a tongue and groove was quite an elaborate and labor-intensive process. (It's possible Dakota regretted his brilliant idea once he actually put it into action.) But, the result is really lovely. Dakota was able to make enough floorboards to cover most of the area, but we did have to purchase some new boards to complete the floor.
He's hoping to get all the floor down before next weekend, when my parents come to visit. One thing we still need to do is decide on an eco-friendly floor finish. I'm current searching the web for a low-VOC and as non-toxic as possible polyurethane finish. Suggestions are welcome.
What a talented fellow there... the floors are something to see, I am sure the pics do not do it justice.. brilliant and beautiful work guys.
Wow, so much work! Who would have thought that sanding would be this exhausting?! The floors look FANTASTIC.