You are reading a single comment by @Cupcakes and its replies. Click here to read the full conversation.
  • Paging @nefarious and @tbc
    I still can't get a quote from anyone for sanding my floor so I'm thinking again about doing it myself, else I may be without a kitchen this side of 2021.

    If I build the kitchen cabinets first and then sand the floors, am I going to wish I did it the other way around? The plan is to use Osmo oil and proceed as follows:

    • Apply oil to boards that will be under new cabinets
    • Build new cabinets
    • Install worktops and upstands
    • Finish plumbing in washing machine
    • Electrician to do second fix of sockets

    ~~ I will at this point have a functioning kitchen ~~

    • Repair floors in areas that have been bodged
    • Sand floors
    • Oil floors
    • Repeat sanding and oiling for hallway (also has new bodged boards)

    At some point I also need to get the tiler to come in and tile the walls above the worktops.

    The benefit of this approach is supposed to be that I get a kitchen back (the flat is really hard to live in at the moment) and I can take my sweet time doing the floor repairs.

    Another benefit is I can consider getting an engineered floor or tiled floor installed, using the existing boards as a subfloor, albeit up to the base unit plinths rather than under them, as an alternative to repairing and sanding/oiling the boards. I can see a benefit to this approach and I would do it now, but I can't get any quotes for anything.

    Basically I am losing my mind a bit after a month without a kitchen, no space in the rest of the flat, working from home, no contractors able to give quotes for joinery or floor work. Just trying to figure a way to move forward.

  • I'm no pro but from my experience of renovating my house I would say it's always going to be better and easier to do it with an empty room (no cabinets). You can do the whole process of sanding and finishing in a weekend. So if you feasibly can I would do the floor first with the most amount of space available.

  • TBH I'm not even sure how much sanding the floor will need. I've texted my mate who's a joiner who's installed a lot of new pine flooring to ask what he does. I've got a suspicion that he didn't bother getting a floor sander in but I'll let you know what he says. I did my floor with a belt sander and I hired an edge sander, but it was in a narrow hallway where using a big floor sander wasn't practical at all. I also did a little bit of very light sanding in between coats with a random orbit sander once the oil had settled after a few days - although I'm not sure it was necessary.

    Personally I'd:
    1) Get all visible areas fixed. Fixing bits after they've been oiled may give you more work to try and get the finish even. Also, you're most likely to create more damage when fixing stuff than when sanding or finishing, so I'd want all that kind of work out the way before sanding.
    I'm only taking about repairs to the actual wood as well, adding trim and scotia can obviously wait until you've oiled the lot.

    2) Sand the whole floor. Sanding around cabinets/beside any edge is a pain. Also you'll end up with an uneven finish, which you'll curse if the kitchen ever changes layout and reveals an unevenly sanded floor. This is also an argument for doing all the oiling evenly, although it's less of an issue.

    3) Oil the whole floor once and leave it for a few days, then you can install cabinets etc and then do further coats of Polyx on the floor that remains. I'd definitely want all the boards sealed with finish before covering any.

About

Avatar for Cupcakes @Cupcakes started