How to repair hardwood floor. A Beginners' guide.

Oh the joys to be a homeowner! 

Ever tackled a project you thought you could possibly: 

A- not be able to finish 

B- turned out not so good 

C- all of the above. 

Well, I have done plenty of both, but somehow, most of the times, the end results have been quite surprising.
Or at least decent.

Lately I have been in fixing mode. 

Yes, fixing is a verb in the south ya'll.

We have been in this house for over 11 years. When we ripped the carpet, 

we uncovered the linoleum floor. 

And when we removed the linoleum floor we uncovered the hardwood...

mostly in good shape...beside this.

Oh not so pretty.

At some point, before we bought the house, there had been some water damage. 

As a young (and overwhelmed) first time owner, we decided to fill the damaged board with rock hard and call it a day. After all we had just bought a house stuck in 1966, and we had plenty of work on our hands. 

Along that wall we had a perfect bench that just happened to cover the unsightly mess. 

Fast forward 10 years.

Bench was sold and I now felt like it was time to repair this floor.

I started to remove the hard rock with a chisel and a hammer.

Then I called someone for a quote to fix the floor.

Surely this is something too hard to fix.

...$350-$400 quote to fix this...

Surely I can finish the job myself!

***spoiler alert: I did***

So I bought myself the cheapest high frequency oscillating tool, 

$40 and got to work. 

I was able to get about 20-25 feet of unfinished hardwood from a friend who has done many house flips.

There are many videos online about how to replace the boards.

Things to keep in mind:

- Always wear eye protection and mask. 

- Use as many Tongue and groove on the boards until your last board.

That will need the tongue of the board cut off and the piece dropped into place.

I used liquid nails under all the boards.

Once dried, sand the area and around the new boards as well.

- Find the closest stain color as you can. 

We are lucky because our hardwood has many color variations.

Don't be afraid to fail.

before the stain

after the first coat of stain

Speaking on not being afraid to fail, 

you might have noticed that in the last six months I have not posted anything. 

...Make that seven months...

Do you want to know what I've been doing?

Well,  I've been doing a lot of remodeling...but I was also training for a 

70.3 Ironman triathlon race. 

That's 1.2 mile swim, 

56 miles on the bike and 

13.1 miles run.

Let me say that not only I survived,

but I finished under 6 hours

AND

it was by far the best experience I have ever done!

So, back to hardwood floor repair.

The end result will always look better than the look of when you started.

Stay Frugal,

Daniela