We've decided that we need to improve some things in our house, just for overall beautification.
1. Stain deck Start Goal: June 25
I know nothing about staining wood... nothing. I assume we need to clean the deck really well with a pressure washer (do you know where we can rent one of those?), and then stain it using whatever color of stain we want, brushing it on in the direction of the wood grain. Any objections?
3. Paint walls Start Goal: July 9
This one isn't so scary. Painting doesn't take a lot of knowledge, I don't think. I want to use Behr brand, the kind with the primer already mixed into it. The fewer coats I have to paint the better! I don't know if you've seen my house... I have base boards, chair rail and crown molding, so painting my house will take quite some time, I think. Especially with how many places we have to tape. But, I know in my living room area I want to paint from the chair rail down a bright red, and from the chair rail up a beige-brown color. I think it will look hot! Then my kitchen I want a sage-green. Everywhere else I'll just do all the beige-brown color. I don't want to get too fancy, because obnoxious colors can turn off buyers in the future.
2. Re-stain wood floors Start Goal: July 30
Again, I know nothing of staining wood. This one I assume we clean our wood floors very, very well, then sand them down to remove the leftover polish from the last time our floor was finished. We have no idea how long ago that was, but I'm sure it's been forever. Then we polish/stain our floor using either oil based or water based stain. I'm thinking of using a semi-transparent, so it doesn't hide the natural wood patterns. I don't know, I'm clueless. The last thing I want to do is ruin my floors!!
It's hard to give up my weekends, but I'd really like to get started on making our house more beautiful! If you have any advice for me, please let me know!
I'm free all summer, so if you need help, call me.
ReplyDeleteHmm, I know nothing, but I wish you luck, it's a lot of hard work!! My husband should know how to do all that stuff if you want me to ask him for the basic idea of what to do....I'm not sure, but you may need to sand the deck also before staining....
ReplyDeleteI'm redoing floors in our house too. I think they might be the original 100 year old wood. I also had no clue how to do any of this before I started, but I'm learning. The guys at Home Depot are full of great advice, the best of which is to rent a floor sander and do the sanding that way. I watched some you tube vids about those and it looks fairly straightfoward, like running a vacuum across a floor, but first diagonally to flatten the wood, then across the grain to smooth it. The Home Depot guys were all in agreement that a good 3 coats of poly after staining (sanding between each coat) is a must for wood floors. I had friends at church yesterday wholeheartedly agree.
ReplyDeleteGood luck!