So.....
During the course of our renovations, our original inlaid wood floors in the kitchen have become scratched and damaged (severely scratched in some areas). So much so, in fact, that my husband decided that he wanted to refinish them right after the cabinet installation was completed.
Our floor refinishing guy Chad showed up the first day, and he sanded all of the top poly coats and the stain off of the floor to expose the raw wood. And guess what he found? Our floors are actually Brazilian Cherry.
That's right. Brazilian Cherry. Allow yourself a moment to let that sink in.
Yup! Holy Crap!! We were pretty much shocked. I mean, first of all, where on EARTH did these people get the money in 1941 to put in Brazilian Cherry hand-laid parquet floors? (Backstory: Our house was built by the wealthy old-Charlotte Victor family for their newlywed daughter and her husband back in 1941) Pretty crazy stuff.
We decided to do a light ebony, which is several shades darker than the floors were before....but not too dark where it doesn't fit with the rest of the house. It came out nice, don't you think? The final super shiny poly coat goes on tomorrow, then we are good to go :)
Our light fixtures for the bathroom went up today, and they look pretty sharp!
It's going to be interesting to see how all of the fixtures blend together. Everything is polished nickel, but the light fixtures are a lot more modern than the vanity hardware and the faucets. Hopefully everything ends up blending well. I'm excited to see what it all looks like when the faucets and towel bars go in on Monday.
Have a great weekend! :)
Just came across your blog post. We've recently purchased an old bungalow that has these hardwood squares and I have been thinking of refinishing them at least for now to save some money. Did you have any problems sanding since the grain goes intwo directions ? Also is there any chance you have pictures of the finished product with the last coat of poly?
ReplyDeleteThanks,Nick
Hi Nick!
DeleteWe didn't do the refinishing of the floor ourselves, but I remember the guy that we hired to do it complaining about how difficult it was lol. If your floor is hand-laid individual pieces of wood like our parquet is, you have to sand with the grain of the wood, and the little pieces all face in different directions.... meaning it is a pain to do! I don't know if I'd be brave enough to tackle that myself. Our floor didn't come out with a high-gloss finish like I originally intended, but you can see the finished product if you click on my Home Tour link on the header bar (top of the page). Or you can click this link and it should take you to it: http://theluxelifestyle.blogspot.com/p/holiday.html
Good luck :)
~Michelle
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ReplyDeleteThese floors are beautiful!! I am closing on a house tomorrow with all parquet throughout and his post just convinced me to keep them! Do you have any tips? Do you remember what color brand of stain you used? How many coats? What kind of gloss? These came out awesome! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteCool stuff you have and you keep overhaul every one of us flooring minneapolis
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