Refinishing Progress

I just got a message from my neighbor who is overseeing the floor refinishing for me while I'm gone. He took a quick snap of the refinished floors in the living room and kitchen. Not going to post it here as I'm sure it's not representative of the real thing, but it looks awesome and I can't wait to see it in person!

No show

There haven't been many disappointments in this project so far and the ones that have jumped up have been very minor.

This past week/weekend I had my first major disappointment - the floor contractor no showed and didn't return my messages.

Now many of you might be saying "typical contractor" right about now, and I agree to an extent. It just seems super odd that someone with great references, who called me back promptly and gave a decent estimate would do such a thing. I can only believe that something catastrophic happened since his wife runs the business with him and she didn't call back either.

After 5 days of phone calls and waiting I've given up. It was somewhat of a toss up to do the floors now anyhow, the real advantage being that I would get the closets back. Yet, I would be stretching money a bit right now and I'm still moving stuff back and forth between rooms. Maybe it was for the best.

To keep things moving forward I began the task of clearing out the living room and moving everything back into the bedroom last night. I hope to start demolition this weekend and get the walls and some of the kitchen cabinets done, leaving the ceiling and the rest of the kitchen for next weekend.

Why worry about wood?

I never really lived anywhere with hardwood floors until I moved to NYC. At first it seemed like a luxury since each apartment ad would point out "HARDWOOD FLOORS!"

I quickly learned that almost every apartment has them, varying greatly in their quality.

I wouldn't say my floors are anything to oooooh and ahhhhh about, but they have the potential to be nice with a bit of care, which I haven't been giving to them by knocking down plaster and dragging tools across them. The closet floors were painted over at one point and then had linoleum laid on top. Although they all are a bit wavy, it will be nice to restore what I belive is likely some of the original character to the apartment.

After a bit of thought, I've determined it is not worth my time to learn how to sand, repair and refinish these floors. This is common work in NYC and it doesn't take much time or money.

So after 3 estimates I've picked Brian Huch of Groundforce Restoration to re-finish the floors. I know a good contractor when I see one and Brian met all of my criteria. He showed up on time, was well dressed, had formal proposal sheets, wanted 10% down and offered references and his insurance for the co-op managing agent in our first meeting. Best part was that his price was competitive against the other two bids.

To my surprise, the floors are a red oak (who would have thought?). They should lighten up a bit when they have been sanded, which I think will be great.

The door thresholds won't be replaced. I'm trying to go for a continuous look to the floor. If I don't like it, I can always buy new thresholds.

While I'm out of town on Thursday thru Sunday he'll begin repairing the thresholds, various spots where the trim was cut into the flooring and the water damage from the radiator in the bedroom, front closet, bedroom closet and foyer.



With the room cleared, my living quarters are stuffed.


Careful in the bathroom as we don't want anyone to get a sliver when you use the toilet.