I am so excited to share the progress of the floors in our dining room today. B and I spent a good part of the weekend working on them, but boy was it worth it! We didn’t really know what we were getting into when we decided to go with the Utility Oak Flooring, but once we got going, we loved them more and more.
B deserves most of the credit, but when it came time for sanding and sealing, it was better with both of us working together. Once we got started, and had everything cleared out, it really seemed to go pretty quickly. The key to installing your own hardwood flooring is to have all the right tools ready to go.
One of the biggest challenges with the Utility Oak Flooring is that it comes in mostly small lengths. This can be time-consuming; almost like putting together a puzzle, but B did a great job mixing in all the small pieces to make it look uniform overall. Now that it’s all down, you can tell it’s a lot of small pieces but I know with furniture, you’ll never see it. In all honesty, the photos don’t do the floors justice!
Staining and Sealing or Sealing Only
I mentioned before that we were undecided on whether to stain the floors as originally planned or leave them natural and just seal them. We were back and forth quite a bit, but finally decided to get a clear sealer and leave them natural.
With everything else in the room so cool and crisp, we loved the idea of balancing with the natural wood and the wood really is so pretty!
I plan to share some detailed information about the flooring we used as well as the sealer we ended up choosing in a future post but for now, I am excited to share the end result! The oak flooring did change color a bit once the sealer was done. I feel like the change was more in enhancing the color rather than actually changing the color.
The only thing left to do is add the last of the trim around the edges where the flooring and the walls meet. Once that is done, we’ll shift the furniture around and start working on the floors in the living room!
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