I’m still not quite finished with the floors in our bedroom suite, but I’m one step closer to finishing them. And I’m so excited about how they fail! Since I qualified myself about my decision about my hardwood floors from Red Oak and how I should end them to get a natural look, I wanted to show them how the floors were used in front of my bed from this morning after using the Bona Natural Seal.
First let me withdraw a little and explain the entire process. If you remember, I decided to promise you with the rest of the house. So I continued to dye a dark color (a 50/50 mix of Minwax Dark Walnut and Special Walnut Fleck) and then to polyurethane. They turned out to be like this …
Then I changed my opinion and decided that I wanted light, natural wooden floors. So last Thursday I rented a drum grinder and an edge grinder from Home Depot and spent the next two days to sand the floors. I started with 36-grit sand paper to get all the dark finish off the floors, and then I used 60-grit, 80-grit and ended it with 100 bodies.
When I ended the grinding, the floors looked like this …
It took a lot of work and a lot of grinding to get the whole dark spot from the wooden masks, but I didn’t want something to be left behind from this stain. Red Oak Hartwood Floors has no really dark grain. So if you can still see dark grain after grinding, the stain that has been left behind is and more has to be sanded.
After I was so incredibly sore on Saturday and Sunday (because I was so incredibly sore from this edge and because I pulled a muscle in my hip and pulled back when I tried very stupidly to lift and move the heavy drum grinder myself), I did not have the need to fill all cracks and gaps in the ground yesterday, because wood contracts in the different seasons, but I had a few gaps, and a couple of knots, and a couple Areas in which the edges looked of some boards looked chipped. down. I also used a scraper to scratch the remaining spots from the floors in the corners and around the door posts, where the soil could not reach.
After I had deleted the floors really well with my shopvac to remove dust, I was finally ready to apply the Bona Naturalal to the floor. I saw so many videos about using this product to determine the best way for me, a full beginner. I wondered to use a T-bar because most people in the videos I saw used, but everyone was also professionals who do this regularly. After I had never used a T-bar, I was pretty sure that they made it look so simple because of their great experience. After I found this video that shows that the Bona Sealer was applied with a roller, I decided that this was more my speed. I am a beginner when it comes to using Bona products on floors, but when it comes to DIY in general, after 30+ years of Diyy I am a professional to use a roller.
I used a 14-inch roller with a 14-inch microfiber roller cover (which I both found in Home Depot at home) to apply the Bona Naturalal. And just like in this video, I thoroughly shaken the product before I opened it, poured it directly onto the floor and then rolled towards the direction of the grain. I have always made sure that the new area that I was springing up in the previous section without puddles or combs with built -up products on the floor.
After I turned from the other wall of the bedroom into the short hall in the walk -in wardrobe and then in the foyer and the doors of the music room doors, I turned and took this picture while the seal was still wet. I was confident that it would dry more, but even if it hadn’t done it, I would have been completely satisfied with this color because I loved this warmth that it gave the wood when it was still wet.
So this morning I endeavored to get out of bed and to see the soils to see how they took care of the natural parlors. Are you ready for the astonishment that is a natural seal on Red Eichenböden? Here it is!
It was stopped a little when it had dried, and the color was also over. The boards that looked very dark when they were wet seemed to make themselves easier after drying, and everything seems to be a little easier than it was than it was wet.
The foyer has a different lighting (and not much of it), so that it looks a bit darker in the foyer. But the floors are light during the entire bedroom suite, but only have a touch of warmth. Since the Bona NaturalSeal contains a bit of white pigment (half of the white quantity like the Nordic Nordicsal), I thought that the final color could be a little lighter than the raw, freshly ground red oak. But it’s actually just a little darker and warmer. And I’m thrilled with the color.
This is what it looks like in the walk-in wardrobe, in which I have many very bright 5000K (daylight) LED lights.
I mean, I think the color is absolutely perfect. I still have to use the clear cover lacquer and I have no idea whether this affects the color. I don’t think it should. I will use in the extra matt finish bona traffigd, and it should be clear, without color in it. I hope that it looks exactly the same when the clear coat continues.
And this is what it looks like in the bedroom, which also has 5000,000 LED lighting. So if you have a warmer lighting (and most people do), the color would look even warmer than in my rooms.
My main concern was that these floors turn into red or orange because they are red oak. I originally intended to use the Bona Red Out before I used the natural seal, but I couldn’t find a place where he was in stock and I didn’t want to delay the soils. So I took my chances and went out without the Bona Red.
I am really glad that it worked that way. I think the light red/orange undertone gives the floor a nice warmth, and I noticed that the red oak floors, after Bona Red Out was used, has more a yellow undertone for them.
Now that the seal is dry, today I can apply the two layers of the clear coat. And I hope that these floors will be completely finished until I go to bed tonight. After the last coat from Bona Traffitichd, it will take three days for the floor to heal completely, but I will be able to run on it after only a few hours.
I am so happy that I took the time to repeat these floors. It was a pain to repeat something that I only finished 2.5 months ago, but the payment is worth it. I mean, just look at this big difference!
I liked the dark floor, but the bright floor makes the rooms look so much larger and feel more easily, and I don’t just mean lighter color. I mean more easily how it makes the rooms feel when I stand in them. They had the dark soils only as difficult, both in color and in the way it felt.
And I’m really looking forward to having floors with an additional matt finish. You know that I have problems with shiny surfaces. If a piece of furniture is not specially painted to have a super high gloss lacquer (which I love, as long as it is done until perfection), I tend to be too satin and matt surfaces. The shiny finish on the dark floor was really frustrating for me. That was the lowest shine in this polyurethane. But an extra matt finish on the floor is definitely more to my taste, and I can’t wait to finish it!
