Kitchen Floor Sanded

Well, that was fun. Not really.

I sanded for the better part of yesterday and now I am a little sore. I do have to say that I am very happy that I bought that respirator mask. It has come in quite handy and it’s nice to know that I am not breathing in the crap I am working on.

Yesterday morning, the sanding was going very smoothly. I was more than half way done. I was working on a particularly tough spot (with lots of glue) when I began to smell something. I looked down and the motor of my brand new DeWalt belt sander was smoking. I gave it a break and tried again…no power. I burned the motor out. I guess not even DeWalt can handle me. I ran down to Lowe’s to return it and grab another one. Once back, I finished up pretty quickly, paranoid that I was going to burn this one out too.

When sanding something like this, with old glue on the floor, is to sand a bit, then sweep, then sand, then sweep. You have to get the glue particles out of the way, or else you will heat them up again and spread them out on what you just sanded. Things went faster once I figured this out. Also, a good tip would be to get those knee pads…I didn’t.

I snapped a chalk line for each joist and re-screwed the subfloor down.

This is the finished floor…all sanded. It doesn’t look great, but will be a heck of a lot better for tiling. It’s also much smoother on my bare feet, and that’s important.