DIY or Don’t?

As I mentioned in my Balance post, I recently decided to purchase a house in which every single nook and cranny moaned, “Help me, please!”  I jumped into action with slight empathy and pure motivation.  I’m not exactly sure where this drive came from (perhaps wanting to have something on my mind besides being mateless, homeless & jobless- see: Ish Been Going Down) but 5 months into sanding, I have to admit that I have doubted my sanity at the time of the decision more than once.  On the bright side, every non-thought-out decision I have made (i.e. career choice, marriages, purple/shaved hairdo) can, in the very least, be morphed into a positive in that it gave me a writing topic.  Given that fact and noticing the interest in the before and after pictures I posted during my projects, I figured it would be helpful to share my house project experiences with my peeps.

Let me go ahead and put it out there that I am not formally trained in any type of home-improvement skills.  I’ve learned by the school of hard knocks: mistakes and exhausting (yet rewarding) practice.  When basing intelligence on the sliding scale of comparison, I have to put myself somewhere in the average to above-average area.  I have earned a Master’s Degree in Education, which is not Rocket Science, but promoted my accurate use of the words there, their, and they’re in written language, so I’m a nudge in front of half of the world’s English speaking FaceBook users.  I’m saying all of that just to say that if I am able to complete a project, and you can read and understand me, I’m sure you can too.

I prepared to write one post about all of my projects, but remembered that this is a blog and not a book, so I have whittled this post down to a comparison of two sanding projects that result in major gratification in terms of pre/post end result: Ripping up Carpet & Restoring Hardwood Floors vs. Refinishing Cabinets.  If you are short of time and just want to trust me and move on with your day, the verdict is the floors are worth the time and effort but I would only recommend the cabinetry work to someone I wished would suffer an evil revenge.  If you appreciate detail and snarky wit, read on.  🙂

When I first stepped foot in my house, there was carpet in all three bedrooms, two of which covered hardwood floors and one of which had fecal matter as a home for flies.  It was a no-brainer to rip that shit up.  My first experience refinishing hardwood floors came two weeks before 40 people were invited to gather at my previous house for Thanksgiving.  My ex’s mom offhandedly mentioned that there was hardwood underneath all of the pitifully stained, blue shag carpeting.  My heart skipped a beat, my tongue started wagging and carpet was ripped off of the floor by the time I went to bed that night.  In Christian Lander’s satirical book, Stuff White People Like, #142, is, in fact, Hardwood Floors.  Guilty as charged.  (I am about to wet myself while flipping through his hysterical book right now.  If you are a smart ass, you want to read it.)

I estimate that I spent about $200 and 36 hours doing the following:

• Ripped up Carpet & its under guts- The carpet is easier than the tag strips, nails and staples. If you like aggressively destructing things and don’t mind splinters and nail pokes, this job is for you.  I used gloves, a hammer, various screwdrivers, a carpet staple remover tool and leftover tidbits of hate and anger towards my exes to get this job done.
• Rented a Drum Sander for wood floor – approximately $80 a day, but I used the weekend to my advantage and got 2 days for the price of one.  Runyon Rental had better quality sanders than Sunbelt Rentals (I don’t work for either company, just sharing knowledge.)  You may have to own a business account to rent from Runyon and the sander shown on Sunbelt’s website is NOT the one you will get.  If you rent a crappy one and have to return it, the time and energy spent makes you start the project already in a defeated, funky hole.
• Bought Sanding Sheets for the Drum Roller from the same place I rented the machine – about $3.00 a sheet.  The store will buy back sheets not used. My living room floor was very scarred and dark, so I started with a hard grain (low number, like 40) going over the floor once, moved up to a middle number (80) for a 2nd run on the floor, and then finished with a 3rd drag across the entire floor with a high grit.  A high number (180) is a finishing grit to smooth it out, but when I got to the point of exhaustion, I didn’t always end with a high number and my floor seems fine.  The first drum roller I rented was a piece of crap and ate up a bunch of my sheets, so I reiterate, make sure you rent a good one.
• Wore masks for sanding so I wouldn’t sound like a lifetime smoker after the weekend- a pack of 3 cost under $10.
• Used a hand sander for corners and edges – I already owned a hand sander; it was approximately $50.  Papers for that are about $10 for a pack of 40.  Again, I started with a high grit (low number), moved to a medium grade and then a finishing sand.  I’ve heard dremels are good for this as well, and I may look into buying one if my kitchen project (below) forces me to.
• After the sanding is over, it is the home stretch.  I swept and vacuumed and wiped the floor off with a wet (not dripping) rag and let that dry.
• Now for the pretty part!  I used a brush to apply a clear coat around the entire edge of the room and then used a foam roller attached to a long handle to apply to the rest of the floor.  (I have used a regular roller before and it leaves air bubbles.)  Shellac/Clear Coat costs about $30 for a gallon which will complete a normal-sized room.  I didn’t stain as I like the color of natural wood.  The sponge rollers are about $8 for a pack of three, and I use a new one with each coat because dirt will collect onto the roller.  My brush was also $8.

I had help from a friend and my kids with the sanding portion but was all on my own for the finishing stages.  I was on a time crunch since the floors were main ones to travel throughout the house.  Therefore, I let each coat of shellac dry for two hours with fans (I set my alarm for a cat nap between each coat) and completed the project with 3 coats.  I have shared pictures of this project throughout this post, and although I wouldn’t seek out this project, I would sign up again, especially if it was accompanied by a stiff drink and good music.

In comparison, although refinishing cabinets is along the same concept of sanding hardwood floors, please save yourself from the agony that comes with this grand feat.  I have dropped to my knees and nearly sobbed during this project and it is only halfway complete (if I’m being optimistic).  I wish I was exaggerating when I say there are 29 doors and 6 drawers in my kitchen that all needed love.  If you see a DIY show that states this is an easy fix and can be done over the weekend while the home owner is away, they are lying to you.  This takes short of forever.

Like the floors, this was also my second experience refinishing kitchen cabinets.  On my first go-round, the project wasn’t as daunting, but possibly because I was in a new relationship, in love, and it was Fall Break.  There were also no layers of paint to dig through which obviously tricked me into trying my hand at this job a second time.  I’ve now learned that it’s a good rule of thumb to check out the hardware holding your doors in place; if they are caked and rusted with paint (see picture), just go to your nearest home improvement store and start pricing cabinet installation.

To get the doors off of the hinges, repeated, deafening strikes with a hammer onto a screw driver must be made on the slot of the old screw just to loosen it up.  After hours of this, the doors may be taken outside for paint stripper to be applied and scraped multiple times and finally, sanded with a hand sander and painted with cabinet paint.  Based on Indiana weather, I was permitted about one day a week in which I was able to do this part of the project.  On the other 6 days of the week, I could work on the frame areas of the cabinets.  Since the paint stripper dripped goo all over, I decided to hand sand the frames.  To get through the six layers of paint, one section took no less than a few hours.  Because the hardware was so old, there was no replacement hardware that would fit.  My dad let me know that I could make pilot holes for new fits, but he lost me at ‘pilot’.  Therefore, old hardware had to be soaked in gasoline overnight, cleaned and spray painted with metallic silver to be re-used.  The handles were the only easy, fun part to this project.  After measuring the distance between the holes, I found pulls that fit perfectly for $1.99.

This last picture is currently the stage of my project that began in July.  Yes, I am choosing to sit here and tell you about this instead of finishing said project.  I have decided to leave a few doors off for baskets to be viewed.  I have also decided that I will provide stiff drinks for any participants willing to join me in a lap through hell to finish a project that I will never attempt again.  Like, ever.