Need help with Waterlox

[Matt in KC]

Is it fairly easy to handle transition areas with Waterlox? We're thinking about refinishing our first floor, but we'd only be able to do it in stages because our house is pretty small. We can locate the transitions in fairly inconspicous places, but this sort of thing never seems to look good with urethane finishes.

[camman]

chad and annie,

I have used waterlox satin finish on about 3000 sq.ft. in my home. I hired someone to sand, then I cleaned up and applied the waterlox myself. I'm doing my cypress kitchen cabinets with waterlox now. Here is a link to some photos of the floor. Let me know if you need any advise, etc.

http://pasogirl.smugmug.com/gallery/401 ... 5527_rTQzw

angela

[mgs]

Matt,

I coated the entire house at a time, so I can't be positive how the transitions would work. However, Waterlox is easily sanded between coats, so I would imagine that you could sand the transition areas. I would recommend 150 to 220 grit, or you could use OO steel wool. Either way, you won't cause irreversable damage.

Angela,

Those floors look fantastic! I'm thinking satin would have been a better choice for me and I might finish off with that sheen. By the way, what paint manufacturer and colour choice did you use? Is it the same in all photos? It looks more green in some and more taupe in others, but I really like it.

[chadzeilenga]

Hi all,
I finished the floors a while back but let them cure for 10 days and got distracted on other projects around the house.
All in all the waterlox worked great. Application was a breeze and I only had a few small set backs along the way. I went with 4 coats on the pine and 3 on the maple. I used original semi-gloss.
First, the maple floors in the dining room and kitchen originally had no gaps between the boards, but now after 104yrs there has been some settling. I didn't want the gaps filled so I had the sander leave them as-is. They are pretty small and not really noticeable, but the waterlox seemed to seep down into them when applied and it cause a sort of dullish finish on the edge of the boards in some areas. I made sure to put a good coat on each time. It's not noticeable to the average joe, but I can tell cause I put the finish on. Hopefully it will diminish as I reapply the finish over the years.
Second, the floor tile under the cabinets used to be on the whole kitchen floor at one time. This means that the black mastic is in all of the gaps between the floor. After the 2nd coat of waterlox the mineral spirits softened the mastic and caused it to bleed over the floor and looked horrible. I was worried at first, but after a little rubbing with 0000 steel wool they came out and I just re-coated with a brush.
Third, I left the kitchen window open for ventilation and I think this let a lot of dust into the kitchen and caused some specs in the finish. Not normally noticeable, but the PO has a flourescent light which makes them look really bad. I think we're going to leave them alone for now and see how many go away with traffic, but will probably hit the kitchen with steel wool in the future and recoat.

Take a look at the pictures.

[chadzeilenga]

This is the bleeding that was in spots in the kitchen.

[Matt in KC]

Those floors look great! If you hadn't mentioned all the flaws, I never would have noticed any of them. I bet that once you have furniture and rugs down, you won't notice them as much. Thanks for posting an update - I'm putting Waterlox on my floors tonight. My wife and I debated on which finish to use, finally settling on the original semi-gloss. Your photos tell me we made the right choice.

[camman]

Matt,
Sorry so long to reply! Thanks for the compliment. The floors are labor of love for sure. The wall color is Pratt and Lambert White House Gold Medium. I love the color, but I would not recommend pratt and lambert. Most walls took 3 coats and some 4 to cover -- and it is not cheap paint. I would get a sample and have lowes match. I used lowes paint in rest of house and looks great.
Angela

[chadzeilenga]

Thanks everybody. We are both really pleased with the results. The sander did his best to get the drum marks and cross grain marks from the previous sanders out of the floor as best he could. I think he did a pretty good job considering it was pine.
With the floors looking so good, I'm pretty tempted to start pulling off the baseboard & window trim and refinishing that ha ha

[rncx]

see, one thing turns into another .

that's how i started. now i've got all of my trim in various stages of stripped outside, some new reproduction coming out of a molding machine i bought, some plaster repair going on, some floors finished and some still needing some sanding, some doors being built, some doors being stripped, some of alot of things!

[mgs]

The floors look great, Chad. Right now I'm putting down new quarter-round that I coated twice with Waterlox. Then I'll pole sand the floors with 150 and put the final coat(s) of Waterlox.