Since my last post, Chris and I enjoyed a fabulous fall break to Europe. Don’t get all jealous on me now, I’ll have you know that the weather was way nicer in Edmonton than anywhere we were. And, on the one really nice day we had in Rome, we couldn’t even wear shorts because we went to the Vatican! No bare limbs allowed. For real.

Plus, it was England’s wettest summer in 90 years! Anyway, we had a great time, visited with family, and saw some amazing historical architecture. Back to the house.

Here’s a video of us installing, sanding, and staining our reclaimed kitchen flooring. I think you’ll like it. I had way too much fun playing with a couple new video editing features.

We still have yet to put the final finishing coats on – 3 coats so far. If we had used harder wood, I might have considered wax. In any case, the products we used were:

• Osmo One Coat Only HS Plus Stain, Oak Colour – It comes in a 375 ml can. We were worried it wouldn’t be enough to cover our area, but it was (by about 3 tablespoons).

• AFM Safecoat Low Odor Polyureseal BP Gloss Finish – This stuff is low VOC, formaldehyde-free, and water based. We chose this to achieve a hard, durable finish to compensate for the fact that fir is so soft.

We like the stain a lot. If you use it, my only tip would be to stir the can often and well to ensure that your stain colour stays consistent during the whole application process. As for the finishing coat, we’re not quite done yet. We’ll fill you in once we are.

We’re almost caught up! Happy Halloween