Some serious work went into restoring these planks covered in decades of paint.

 

The pine floorboards were reclaimed from a convent in Dublin. The floor would be fairly typical of a house like ours (maybe wider and without tongue & grooves in 1767).

It took three rounds of paint stripper to get them ready for sanding!

We rented an orbital floor sander and went over (and over, and over) with three grades of sandpaper.

We filled the nail holes with wood glue mixed with sawdust, but maybe it was the wrong glue as it left residue that wouldn’t sand up and we had to tackle it spot by spot.

Our good friend Stephanie had the patience to hand sand all of the edges where the floor met the skirting, and under the radiators.

Dust, everywhere.

The freshly sanded pine was lighter than we wanted, so we stained it to get a more aged look. Then we applied hard wax oil to finish it. Oiling floors would be more in line with the time period of the house, plus it will be easier to spot treat damaged areas in the future. Applying the hard wax oil was probably the easiest part and had the biggest impact.

After working on it almost a month, the floor is curing now.  I’m dying to get some furniture in there and have a sitting room for the first time since we moved in a year and a half ago!