And then we refinished our floors...

So after about 6 weeks of working on our house day and night, eating microwave dinners, living out of suitcases (and 4 rolling racks) in my sister's basement we had reached a point where our house was now livable.
We had scraped our ceilings, put up crown moulding, painted EVERYTHING, repaired all the rotten wood, gutted our bathroom, tiled our shower, put new plumbing in the bathroom...the list goes on.
We had reached a point of do-or-die.  Chris and I looked at each other and said, "Either we can clean up and move in, or we can take two more weeks to re-finish our floors."  Our floors desperately needed to be re-finished.  They were dull, scratched, cherry red, and now...covered in paint and drywall mud.  We knew it needed to be done, and now was the ONLY time to do it, but the thought was exhausting and we just didn't know if we had it in us.

Here's how our floors looked...  

Chris and I went back and forth for a day, until finally we just decided to go for it.

First we had to sand down the floor to bare wood.  It has to be sanded three times with three different sand papers in decreasing coarseness.  Our friends Alan and Alex helped us with this daunting task.  It all had to be done in a day because we were renting the machine by the day.  Most of the room was sanded with a large machine that looks like a small lawn mower.  Then the edges have to be sanded with an edger that looks like a drum.  The drum sander is very heavy and physically exhausting!  Thank you boys!!!

We painted on the stain in sections.  We used Minwax Dark Walnut.  We waited about 5 minutes after each section, then got on our hands and knees and wiped it away by hand.  This was so physically strenuous!

Here's how it looks after it's wiped...

After staining the entire house, we let that sit for 24 hours then we applied the high gloss polyurethane.  We applied three coats of polyurethane with between 24-48 hours drying time between each coat.  Each coat has to be lightly sanded by hand between coats.  It was quite a waiting game.  After the final coat, we had to let the floor cure with little to no traffic for one week.  

When it was all said and done, it was SO WORTH IT!  Our house feels like a completely different place because of the new floor.  

Here's the recap...

Before:

After:

Don't worry, we'll get to that fireplace hearth later...yuk!