Departure from my normal blog: Brown bag floors, what the others have not told you!!

Pin It Now! Wow… I FINALLY took the brown paper bag floor plunge!!! Now, I consider myself to be a total DIY'er. So… yeah. For those of you that have been to my house in the last let's say, ohhhh 4(ish) years… you may have noticed the unfinished laminate flooring all along the main floor? And by unfinished, I mean no stairs done, no landings done, only some baseboard put up, totally plain subfloor… unfinished. Embarrassing, right?!!! I mean, we have a busy life and installing that laminate flooring almost ruined our marriage. Okay, not really, but seriously, that was terrible to install (for us at least). So when I found a link here to brown paper bag floors on Pinterest (LoVe), I just KNEW it was the answer we were looking for. We needed something cheap, we have wrap around stairs and those cost a bundle to carpet, so that was not an option. We were originally going to laminate the "normal" stairs and landings, then stain the wrap around stairs to match the laminate. The remaining laminate was still in boxes outside just waiting to be installed but who knew when that was going to happen and we were so tired of looking at the same un-done floor for so long, that they kind of wore on us in a not-so-good kinda way.

Yep, un-done floors, for 4 years. 

Old flooring 

Now, I am in NO (I repeat Nooo) way here to knock what others have done, because if it weren't for their posts, I never would have found this flooring. We would be wondering what to do with our floors, while looking like we just really didn't care about our home. Not the case. After I started the floors, I wondered if there was anyone who had the same issues that I had, and I found not ONE blog about the negative side of this floor! Had I found someone telling me the bad side to this, would I have changed my mind? No way! But at least I would have known what to expect… I am the type of optimist (I think at least :)) that takes the dive, not thinking that it may be a long road or may be more difficult than I expected. Like fairy dust is sprinkled on everything and it's just happy, HaPpy, Happy!! Not so much on this journey. So, just consider this post as your "Caution: Please Read Before Entering" sign. Hopefully this will inform you before you take the plunge!  Read it up and read her blog!! It has impertinent information that I cannot take the time to repeat if you want to do these floors!!! She also has pictures of supplies and a list of what is needed to finish the whole thing, I just give a quick list, a few links and it really isn't very organized. This is not a tutorial on how to do it… it is a tutorial on how to survive through it!

The rundown:
Here is a list of what is needed in no specific order,  just running it off the top of my head. I will post a few pics and some prices as well…  Brown paper bag floors are essentially just that. Minus going to the local grocery store and buying loads of brown bags, or saving all of your bags for a year ;). Any of your local home renovation stores will sell rolls of brown contractor paper, most of them in the isle with the drop cloths. Then you need gallons of Elmer's glue. That's right folks. Good ole' glue and yes, they sell it in gallons, (I used 3) my store had it in the same isle as the spray paint. WINE. A big bucket (not for wine, but for the glue, mine cost about 2$). Chip brushes… 3" (I bought 2) sold in the paint brush isle, wood filler, putty tool, floor sander (rented), stain (I used dark walnut), HELP (as in friends, family, neighbors, whoever you can get), polyurethane, latex gloves (a lot, they kind of disintegrate in the stain), staining pads (for stair edges, I found it much easier than a paint brush), PATIENCE, and can't forget the wine. Lambswool stain block (on a wood block), foam pad for the poly, replacement foam pad (if you have enough flooring to do, they curl up after some use), painters extending pole, chiropractor, touch-up paint, money for dinners, Oh, and a month! Now, our costs to date are around $350. NOT including dinners! That is far more than we expected. You can see from the pictures that it isn't that large of a house, so I am not sure why it is that big of a price difference form hers, but that's okay. $350 is far cheaper than carpet or hardwoods would have been… and those options are not nearly as unique. I am pretty peeved that it is taking as long as it is, I had to postpone a birthday party because the floors would not be usable by the original date set. Grrr. Think it out people, think it out.

The start:
We started this during the weekend, I believe it was a Saturday. So, I began by getting some of this wood filler. I needed three of them (@ $7.48 ea.) for all of our flooring. I filled in all of the nail holes, cracks, lines, whatever I could find. Let that dry, then sand it all down with this:

We rented it from Lowe's for $39.00 and there was supposed to be a deposit that they apparently forgot to charge me. Good thing I turned it back in, in good shape! ;) This bad boy is HEAVY!!! It probably will not fit in the back of a car, so I would advise against it. It fit nicely in my van, after the back seat was removed. Seriously, it is heavy. Get help. And my Lowe's, wasn't much in that department. They didn't even have someone to teach me how to use it, let a lone get it out to may van, so they made copies of the instruction manual and sent me on my way. I figured it out anyways. Along with this, you need  Sanding discs. We used four packs, different grits (@ $6.59 ea.). Clearly this didn't get into the corners, so out came the Mouse sander and of course the mess. And the hurting lungs. All 24 stairs. Cough, cough, ouch. Afterward, a friend told me to use our shop vac behind the mouse to catch a lot of the dust! BrILLiaNt!!! Too bad it was too late ;) After removing what we could of the dust from the floors, it was time to get the paper down! Here is where I venture off for a minute:

I have three children. All boys. 15, 3, and 21 mos. My husband was out of town for the week. Do I need to explain more? I was super stubborn in the beginning. I thought, "Ohhh, what's the big deal??! I can totally do this. It is ripping paper and putting it in some glue, and laying it out." I started this portion of the project on a Monday. I REALLY wanted to have this done by the time he got home on Friday (little did I know he came home Thursday instead, but more on that later). So, I wanted him to walk in to a nice, clean, home… beautiful shiny new floors, a "Welcome Home" banner hanging form the stairs… Just because we really were tired of the old floors and how great to have new ones!!. Folks… the paper portion alone took me until SATURDAY!!! My dining room alone was Monday from 11-6:30. This is the size of my dining room:

It really is not that big!
From knees, to sitting cross legged, to one hip, to the other hip, Alllll weeeeeek. Hours. Really, the times I stopped were because of a poopy diaper, someone was hungry, or it was bedtime. Thank GOD for cartoons!!

Side note: If you wanna take up with my parenting skills for the last week and a half, then come help me  with the floors first, got it?!! They survived, didn't they?!!

I wore jeans the first day. I would suggest not to do that. The glue that gets wiped onto the pants turns into a sandpaper like substance (the knee areas are kinda like bongos because of the glue ;)) and my forearms rubbed against it, making them R. A.W. The picture really does not do justice as this is the day after and I had used vitamin E oil on it the night before.

I mentioned a Chiropractor in my 'items needed' list. Yep. I need one. The back and forth on my lower back really got something out of whack. Hips… oh boy, kind of reminiscent of  early labor. Not even kidding. 

All of that to get to the "HELP" portion of the 'items needed'. At one point early on, I asked my oldest to tear up big pieces of paper for me… big like this here… 

 

This is what I got instead! LOL!! A whole bag full! I appreciated it anyways and used what I could. 

I asked a couple of people and quite honestly, I felt like the guy in the comcast commercial who is moving and he calls his friends to ask for help. One is "sick" (she's out shopping I believe), one is at "work" (really surfing or something). Now, I am not saying at ALL that my friends would lie about helping me out, Okay?? But, I really needed help, and if you are okay with getting help, get it! Get some beer and pizza, and get some help. You will be so grateful you did. This will go much faster and would be so much more fun with another person, or two, or three! I had one friend who was willing to help out with my kiddos (love you!!) and God bless her!!! Listen, I get it.. people have lives! No need to further explain myself, however I will say this… by Thursday I was sitting on my steps literally bawling because my body hurt so badly, I saw no end in sight, and I could not get any help in getting the paper down, except this 

Get help if you can. And dinner? Forget about it. At least I had to. We ordered out too much because I didn't have the energy or the room in my kitchen to make dinner. Pitiful really. Makes you so grateful for the kitchen you have when you are finally able to use it again!! So, if possible, budget in for that too… just in case :) I was trememdously blessesd (by that same friend who was going to take my kiddos) who had myself and my littles over for dinner on that very Thursday. She has no idea how that night saved my sanity ;) 

So, My husband calls on Wednesday to pray with us for bedtime and prays for safe travels the next day (Thursday). I was surprised just because I didn't realize he was coming home early, but there was no WAY I would be done in time! He is amazing. He said it was okay, he would help all he could when he got home. And he did. We finally finished it together on Saturday. Good thing too. At this point, my oldest was away at football camp and there was no way possible I could have finished the wrap around stairs alone. No. Way. We did have to leave "walking spots" so we could go from one room to the next, but it all worked out well. I will say this. It. Is. Durable!!! I was really surprised without having put down any stain or poly at how well it holds up. Good thing too, leaving one side to the mercy of the kids while the other side gets the stain/poly treatment. 

Thank GOODNESS!! Time for stain!! I went out and got the exact same stain and poly that was used in the above referenced blog. Lowe's doesn't carry that poly, so off to Home Depot I went. The reason why is, on her comments, people were complaining of clouding of the poly, and other issues. So, I figured if I got what she had, it minimized my chances of having issues. Here is the stain we used. Originally my hubs and I wanted a lighter color, but we agreed that it probably wouldn't take as the brown paper is kind of a darker shade anyways. If you are wanting a lighter color, perhaps you could use a different paper? We are happy happy with the dark walnut!! Now. People were complaining about the poly clouding over the stain. The chances of that happening are pretty good if I understand this correctly. Stay with me here. If you use a water based poly, you need to use a water based stain, and vise verse for oil based products. The recommendation for these floors is an oil based stain, and a water based poly. So, it more than likely WILL cloud. I used the oil stain, and the water based poly, and I think it worked great! I live in Colorado and we have had rain (no complaining here!!) and crazy humidity for our area (figures ;)). The only thing I think it affected as far as the floors go, was the drying time on the stain, which being oil based will take awhile anyways. I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly the poly dried, but here is the big issue… the poly has to be applied at least  8 times. Drying time in-between coats is 8 hours, even though it is walkable within 2 hours. so, one coat in the am, one in the pm. We have a long house, that is corralled off by a large baby gate so the small kids can't walk on the fresh poly. After the four- five days of applying the poly, it HAS to cure for a week! That is almost a full two weeks with only half of the house. This is after a previous week of placing paper down! Then we have to go and do the same to the other side… hence, why it is taking so long. 

The solution:

The whole floor has been "papered". Clearly we cannot stain ALL of it at once. So, we moved the dining room table into the garage (yes, the first week, during the paper phase, we ate in the overly crowded garage… gross). Moved the china hutch and buffet into the kitchen, moved the couches and entertainment center into the dining room. Got it so far? Gated off this living room so it is off limits: 

                                                                     

Every other stair gets a coating of stain. The living room gets stain. The landings minus a couple stepping spots gets stain. Allow to dry for 24 hours. Stain the stepping spots and the other stairs. Poly the first stained stairs and the living room, place sticky notes like the ones in the picture so I know which ones have been polyied how many times, and then we live in the dining room :) Did I mention re-paint once this is all over with? Re-paint the area around the stairs that took me four days to finish a year ago? Because I apparently cannot do this without making a HuMonGo mess. 

Not only will I be re-painting, but I, along with whomever decides to brave the brown paper bag floor will also be cleaning all the walls. The glue likes to squirt out all over the walls, little hands can reach over and touch the stairs before the stain is dry and then they grab the railings like this 

Before I went to my friends house for dinner that Thursday, she found out that I had not one glass of wine all week, she said "Oh honey, that's where you went wrong!" Ha!!! Gotta love a friend who tells it like it is! Lo and behold.. she was RIGHT! I had a glass on Friday afternoon and this floor was sooo much easier to work on! Let's just hope the floors end up better than my Martha Stewart DIY glitter wine glass! 

So here is what I have so far, I can't wait to finish and get pictures posted of a house with baseboards and floors that are cohesive throughout. As I stated previously, I still would have done the floors, but I really would have loved to know exactly what I was getting myself into. Maybe some call it whining? Eh, you do it for this long and tell me what you think ;) 

Upstairs landing

I think this fireplace needs a whitewashing… now especially with the dark floors, don't you?!! Just don't tell the hubs ;) 

Stairwell