It all started out wonderfully. The men showed up on time, if not early. They worked hard and fast and cleaned up afterwards. Then, the bedroom floor refinishing went wrong. Very very wrong.

First, they didn’t sand the floor down with the right sander. They used a sander/buffer which does not go deep enough to remove the finish down to the bare wood. Then they didn’t wash up all the dust, but instead used a stain/sealer which they applied wrong. You need to apply a thin coat and then wipe up the excess. Instead, it was slathered on thickly and left with fan going and windows open to insure that every speck of dirt and dust and all manner of air born thing would be permanently imbedded. Walking on the floor was like walking on a gravelly beach.

Of course, the finish never dried. For two weeks it didn’t dry, so they finally admitted that it needed to be removed. But they didn’t do it right. They used the stupid buffer/sander again but managed to simply gum up the sandpaper. So they wiped the floor down with mineral spirits and without any further cleaning–not even a light vacuuming–they applied polyurethane.

Can we say, “AAAARRRGGGGGHHHHHHH”?

So after several attempts to tell them that the floor was wrong and had to be redone from scratch…sanded down to the wood and refinished, they refused to admit there was even a problem.

So when I stupidly tried to fix the exposed outlets and managed to shock myself across the room, we realized we could not let the floor stay as it was. I had been squatting down and when i was thrown back, my heels skidded on the floor (I was barefoot, of course), taking up the finish in two large gummy strips.

Since Saturday, Brni has been peeling up the parts of the floor that were still wet under the dry polyurethane and washing them with down with mineral spirits. Then he sanded for three days. Tonight I cleaned. Tomorrow we do a final wipe down and stain. Then numerous coats of polyurethane and then finally we should be able to move back into our bedroom. The bedroom that we have been not sleeping in for the past five weeks. The bedroom we already paid a good price to have fixed and ended up fixing it again at a hefty price of time and labor and much aggravation and pissed-offedness.

and the basement is STILL not done.