Refinishing Tongue & Groove Subflooring

From watching too many episodes of "Rehab Addict," I was quite excited about finishing some hardwood floors.  The day after school ended, we started demo on the second floor.  We thought that taking up the tile and subflooring was going to take a long time, but honestly we had it all pulled up in about a day and a half.  (Thank goodness my brother came to help!)

Here I'm still in my pajamas and slippers.

Underneath the tile was wide plank tongue and groove attic decking.  It was never really "meant" to be sanded and finished as a hardwood floor, but the great thing about owning a home and doing your own renovations is that you call the shots.  This flooring was beautiful and rustic and exactly the character that we like to surrounded ourselves with.

Since the floor was never "meant" to be finished, all the boards were nailed in place using top nails.  And to run a sander over the floor meant that every single nail needed to be driven below the surface of the board.  With the help of some coffee and a good weighted hammer from the wood shop, we worked for about three hours just driving nails.

Because there was no previous stain or poly on these boards, we didn't need a heavy duty sander.  So we went to Home Depot and rented the buffer sander with some rather rough paper.  That combination did the trick of smoothing out the boards without being too harsh.  After a rough sand paper pass with the sander, I moved up to a finer sand paper to finish off the sanding job.

The first sander I had the pleasure of renting.

There's a clear difference, even with a light sanding.

The next step was staining, which I did by hand, with a rag.  After a day or so of letting that dry, I put on two coats of polyurethane (non glossy finish).  And, voila! the first refurbished hardwood floors in our new place!