Floor sanding = living in a pit

The good news is this was the last major project of the summer. It's been a long summer of getting things done, and I had been dreading the mother of all the summer projects: the floor refinishing. Bosco seems to have claws like Edward Scissorhands, so he managed to tear up our hardwood in less than 12 months time. I wish I would have got a picture of the floors before hand, but you would have thought we ran a cheese grader against them for the hell of it.

The picture below shows the old finish in the center, with the area around it all sanded down (sorry for the quality--camera phone).

Picture of the bedrooms and hallway all in their natural color: You could clearly see where Bosco came screaming across the room and put his air brakes on and slid...at some points leaving claw marks about three feet long. So, the project begin late last week..starting with moving EVERYTHING from the upstairs and cramming it in the upstairs bathroom, in the kitchen, and in the basement. We have a small house. We have a ton of crap when you unpack it all. Crap + small house = living in a pit.

Current state of the kitchen:

Sadie headed out of town Friday to get away from the potentially unhealthy sawdust and ensuing chemical smells, so I was left alone to sand the floors in a cloud of miserable super-fine sawdust. Oh don't worry though, the sawdust settled after a day and then I got to deal with toxic fumes, every time I mopped on the poly---all 5 coats. I wore a full resperator the entire time, but even that didn't capture everything. The poly was crazy strong and after a few coats I was pretty dizzy and I noticed my reaction time was slowing pretty good (I dropped a five pound sledge hammer dangerously close to my big toe...and my foot didn't even flinch). The final coat has been drying since Sunday night, so we're almost finished. The big furniture move will happen tomorrow night hopefully if the poly is hard enough. In the meantime I've been replacing trim and painting Joel Jr's bedroom. The first coat is on! My lovely wife picked out a nice manly color, and it looks good. ("mossy landing" is a stupid name for a paint color--I'd like to meet the people who create paint color names---they must huff poly throughout the day). So there is light at the end of the tunnel---2 more days and just about everything should be back to normal, although we can't put area rugs down for a least one more week. I'm excited to finish painting in the baby's bedroom and to put all the new furniture in there---it'll feel great to have that accomplished. I just may pass out in the crib at that point.

Looking good---The Living room with the first coat of poly: