More Madness (With Details and Advice in Case You are Contemplating Insanity)

Once we were ready to sand, we had to seal off the rest of the house.

That meant you could go in the kitchen door to get to the kitchen, the dining room table, and the upstairs bedroom, but you had to go in the front door to get to the work area, and the back door to go downstairs.

It was a little crazy!

Last coat!

But we used water based polyurethane, so we never had to move out (oil base requires fewer coats but has toxic fumes),

We put down four thin coats, buffing (another sander rental!) before the final coat.  Sanding took 2 full days, and finishing took another 2 days- but those days were easy since we were waiting about 6 hours between coats.  I guess we actually put a fifth coat on the front hall since it gets the most wear, but we still finished that fourth day.

Here's the part I wish I'd known when I did this the first two times.

Theoretically, you can walk on the floor in socks after 24 hours, in shoes in 48 hours, and shortly thereafter, move in the furniture.  We did do the sock thing at 24 hours, mostly because we were refinishing and reinstalling all the shoe molding.

But this time I waited almost 4 days to move the furniture, and 5 or 6 days to move in the table and chairs.  Also, the Emperor added felt covers to the plastic glides on the chairs, and we haven't had a single scratch.

This is significant because the other times I did this, the finish under the dining room table was badly scratched within a week.  In dining rooms, you sit on the chair and scoot it into the table while putting weight on it. Tough on the floor!

The floor does a lot of hardening in the first 5 days, is mostly done after the first 60 days, but will continue to cure for the entire first year!