Last weekend Lonnie and I spent nine hours trying to scrape all this dark garbage off our kitchen floor. You can tell the photo above was taken before we got started because we are both smiling.
We tried so many things: metal scrapers, wet towels, dry ice to “freeze” the adhesive, and premium paint stripper. Even after hours of work, it looked like this.
I was beginning to question my sanity. No one in their right mind would think this floor could be saved.
We also had to pull every nail, screw, and staple out of the floors, and there were so many. The ones that just would not come out we set deep in the wood to not interfere with the sanding.
The next attempt to clean up the floors featured our contractor’s sander, which was not robust enough for the job either. So finally we rented an industrial sander and used 36-grit sandpaper to tear that crud apart. And it came up finally and polluted the air in our house something fierce (always wear a good mask for toxic jobs like this, please!). But there’s this dark spot:
My sink used to sit right there, so it’s got to be a water stain. The good news is that the boards aren’t warped; the bad news is they’re ugly.
So things aren’t all sunshine and roses over here. We’re going to try wood bleach, and we think the island might cover the spot, so I’ll have an update later.
Do any of you readers have a great suggestion for treating a stain like this? •
Boulevard West 