Lord beer me strength

Here I am staining.  In my orange striped shirt and gas mask. hot hot hot.

I should mention that it is around 11pm when this picture was taken. I was thinking we would be staining around 5 that evening...wrong.  It took us all day friday to get the floors ready to stain.  And when they were done, we were committed to coming back in 6 hours to neutralize the staining chemicals....

That's right, people...we had to be back at 5am the next morning.  And it's a 30 minute drive out to the ranch from our current home.  I tried not to complain, but when the alarm clock went off that morning, I offered whatahusband $1,000 to finish the job himself.  Just my luck it's a 2 person job.

Here's whatahusband around 6am.  After we neutralized, we had to mop the floor 3 times to pick up the residue. (The dark wet spots are a close to what it will look like when it's finished. It's much darker than we were expecting, but we both really like how it turned out.)

After the mopping, we had to wait for the floors to dry out again in order to lay down the 1st layer of epoxy.  We GROSSLY underestimated the epoxy step and how hard it would be.  We opted for industrial grade commercial epoxy that will last up to 20 years without needing to be stripped or re-sealed. You might be thinking...maybe that's a little bit overboard for a residence?  Yes, you'd be right...and let me tell you why...because my hubby likes things to "to stand the test of time" which means this: if we were to buy a new piece of furniture...say a bookshelf...he has to be able to bang it, wiggle it, press on it, and generally imagine any type of situation where it might be bumped or knocked over, and if he thinks it will pass these tests without breaking,  he thinks it is a good piece of furniture for our house.  Solid wood entertainment center, oil field pipe end tables, welded steel garage shelves, these are the ugly  practical things he likes.  He doesn't care if it's pretty. If it weighs 1,000 lbs and  is super bulky and not stylish or dainty in any way, I bet he would love it.  Bless his heart - he comes by it honestly. His dad likes things even more sturdy. If you were in a hurricane in Texas, you'd want to be at my in-laws house.  It's a steel frame house, walls made of concrete, with rock layered on top of that. We could be sipping margarita's and the world would be ending outside and you'd never know it.  

Anyway, I digress. We opted for commercial grade epoxy.  This is the stuff you find on grocery store and warehouse floors. Once you start the process, you can't stop and you're bound by the drying times of each layer. The first layer goes on - it took both of us working together about 5 hours to do this layer - then we waited 14 hours.  If it is not fully cured (which was the case with us) you come back at 24 hours and the clock starts again with a 2nd layer of epoxy. It was rough.  I epoxied my hair to the pole attached to the roller. We couldn't walk on it with shoes or socks because it was tacky, so we taped plastic bags over our feet.  On the morning we did the second layer, I forgot to bring shoes.  I criticized whatahusband for "sub-par paint brush technique".  He criticized me for having a bad attitude and being cranky.  Guilty as charged. I tried to keep it upbeat, I really did. But, I had bags for shoes, I ripped out my hair, and I was SO ready to be done.

Well, we survived and we are one step away from being completely finished.  We wait 5 days for the epoxy to fully cure, then we wax it. After the wax layer dries, we can FINALLY walk on it and move our stuff into the house...and LIVE there. Can't wait! :) 

Pics to come in 5 days...