Day 2 - Poly, Oh Golly (aka KosterZarry Refinishing Inc.)

We awoke to view our work (the sanding, cleaning, and sealant) in the overcast morning light of Medford and declared it a job well done!! We, once again, got down on our very sore hands and knees and tack clothed the whole floor, lightly sanding in spots we thought needed a bit extra. Then we started laying down our first coat of poly. It got mighty sweaty under the ventilators, but the smell is unbearable!! The finished product is shown below. You can see how we crammed the dining room into the living room just beyond the edge of our polyurethane masterpiece! We'll wait for this coat to dry and then get ready for our second coat...AND A LITTLE LATER THE SAME DAY......After the first coat dried, we got down AGAIN on our hands and knees (as seen here) and sanded the floor with 220 grit sandpaper, vacuumed the floor, then tack clothed twice. Nope, you don't sand off the polyurethane from the first coat, just scuff it up a bit. It took a heavy duty power sander with 50 grit to remove polyurethane, so 220 grit really doesn't hurt the polyurethane so much as help us prepare the surface to add another coat. Here it is sanded. We proceeded to start the second coat of polyurethane. Oh, but of course there was a challenge!! At night, with the only lighting being our overhead incandescent light fixture, it was hard to see spots we missed. We tried bringing in extra lighting and a flashlight, but that was still too difficult. Finally, we realized if we turned off all the lights and used just the flashlight, we could inspect our work. We only figured this out when we had already finished the coat thought, but soon enough to catch some spots close to the exit. Here's the floor just after the second coat. We'll let it cure for a good 36 hours before we move back in. Put a fork in us, 'cuz we're done!!