budget? what budget?

So you know how we intended to have all of our existing hardwoods refinished and some new ones installed in just some areas? We just had to throw that idea out the window and all of our existing floors with it. We knew our floors were damaged and that more of the damage would be apparent when the sanding started but we didn’t expect it to be a total loss. Termites eat wood from the bottom and sideways so the top sometimes looks better than the full board. 

Here is what we were working with originally. In some areas it looked mostly fine and in others the damage was apparent.

And this is a close up of our floor after the first light sanding that was done to evaluate which boards would need replacing. Excuse the photos, I took these on my phone when I ran over during lunch to assess the situation. All the darker spots are holes in the wood and this was the case in about 70% of the areas.

After considering the amount of boards that would have to be replaced it started making much more sense to scrap all the existing floors and go for pre-finished 3/4″ hardwoods. So the guys who were there today to repair and sand ended up doing this to my house instead.

Our budget is blown, which I guess is usually expected with any renovation project, but at least the silver lining to this is our floors will be in much faster, the house won’t smell like polyurethane for days and I won’t be cleaning wood sanding dust from every corner! Sigh…

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