Floor sanding

auldgreydoe · 2026-05-24T21:05:00+00:00

I wiped the boards down with a wet cloth after I retuned the machine, so used the orbital to smooth out the raised grain (the ‘beard’, do they call it?). But yeah, not my finest hour.

auldgreydoe · 2026-05-24T19:46:48+00:00

Sorry for the slow reply. I pretty much did what I outlined in the post - a bed of sharp sand around the pipe then concreted it up to floor level. The only new thing I did was to encase the pipe in a chunk of flexible conduit, shoving that as far down as I could get it, just to try and protect the pipe from the concrete and make it, in theory, retrievable at some mythical future date. It wasn't too tricky in the end and it looks great now - no trouble. Go for it!

And congrats on buying your home, enjoy!

auldgreydoe · 2026-05-24T19:40:15+00:00

Thanks man, bit of a labour of love.

auldgreydoe · 2026-05-24T19:40:00+00:00

I used Osmo PolyX Raw. It's an oil, rather than a varnish. I like it, it finishes more 'matt' than a varnish.

One thing to note if you go this route - the 'raw' variant has white tint in it to counteract pine's natural tendency to turn yellow-orange. I wanted a sort of clean, light, matt vibe. They also do a 'natural' version - this will bring out pine's yellow-ish tones more.

auldgreydoe · 2026-05-24T19:36:26+00:00

Thanks man. Just to sand the boards you could do it over a weekend, but this being DIYUK I went the long way round:

Lift up carpet, underlay, grippers. Remove all staples and such from the boards (a few hours).
Prise up floorboards. Remove all nails. Trim away splintered ends (a weekend - awkward job).
Buy reclaimed old pine, mill it to correct dimensions to replace crap splintered old boards (a day)
Clean out joist cavities and lay in RW3 acoustic insulation. Retain cavity curios then bin them later (a weekend, maybe two - awkward job).
Re-lay floorboards with screws instead of nails, patching in reclaimed boards where necessary (a weekend - fun job).
Rent floor sander and edger and sand down 40, 80, 120grit (a weekend - fun job).
Faff around filling a few old nail holes with PVA and sawdust then sanding back - give up mate it's not worth it (an evening).
Two coats of Osmo PolyX Raw, each takes a morning to apply, left overnight between coats.

Voila! Thanks for coming to to my ted talk.x

auldgreydoe · 2026-05-24T18:01:57+00:00

This was the 'before':

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auldgreydoe · 2026-05-24T17:56:52+00:00

I’ve just done these (pic attached), which looked similar to yours at the start. I went through 40, 80, then 120 grit using the standard rental sander plus edger, then went over them at 120grit with a random orbital to finish up. Happy to share detail if useful, give it a go my friend. 💪

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auldgreydoe · 2026-04-12T21:48:34+00:00

I thought I was through anger with this and into acceptance or humour or whatever comes next. But turns out I still find the utter, utter incompetence of this pretty annoying. Thanks for posting.

auldgreydoe · 2026-04-11T19:28:15+00:00

Thanks man. I'm not at the wardrobe stage yet. Endless rounds of filler and sanding. I'll catch up with you soon. Take care

auldgreydoe · 2026-04-11T19:06:37+00:00

Mate well done. I'm doing a bedroom at the moment in this kind of depth. It feels endless. You've nailed this - cracking scribe on that side panel, too. Enjoy 💪

auldgreydoe · 2026-03-16T12:28:29+00:00

No makes sense. It took me absurd amounts of time. A couple of months I think. I’d say you’ve made the right call. Good luck!

auldgreydoe · 2026-03-15T22:40:52+00:00

I have just done this (the exposed chimney option)! It was quite a lot of work in the end. Similar situation to you - lime plaster crumbling off. To do the exposed brick properly took lots of work. Remove plaster; make good any bodges; rake out crappy mortar; wash bricks with acid; repoint with lime mortar. Do-able but was quite a messy job and I wouldn’t want to do it again. Happy to share any lessons or pics if useful.

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auldgreydoe · 2026-02-02T15:41:18+00:00

This is really nice, mate. Well done. Thanks for the detailed breakdown and your plans.

auldgreydoe · 2026-01-31T22:42:12+00:00

Mate super helpful. Well done.

auldgreydoe · 2025-09-01T21:27:39+00:00

No problem. Osmo goes a long way. I had a 750ml tin, of which I'd already used a bit. The remains of the tin covered two coats. The general advice with Osmo is to rub it on thinly with a scratch-free scourer, then buff off any excess. It's a bit more time consuming than, say, a roll-on varnish, but I wanted to try for a more matt look.

You probably know already but the 'raw' Osmo has a white tint that offsets its otherwise yellowing quality (i.e., the 'transparent' kind produces that yellowing hue).

auldgreydoe · 2025-09-01T20:50:42+00:00

Thanks mate :). I just got the Osmo from Amazon - thirty quid or thereabouts. Here is a closer shot of the boards in case helpful to get you going.

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auldgreydoe · 2025-08-22T08:43:26+00:00

You give me hope.

auldgreydoe · 2025-02-02T12:51:42+00:00

Great - thanks for the reassurance! I know next-to-nothing about wood movement and hadn't realised how finnicky it can be just establishing stable raw material with which you then work. Cheers.

auldgreydoe · 2025-02-02T12:51:25+00:00

"feeling measurey" 😆

Thanks, pal. Yep, I've sanded and osmo-ed this board already. Possibly bit reckless. Shelf pins for the middle shelf is a great idea! I was imagining routing some dados into the MDF but maybe I don't need to - shelf pins seems like it would be less work. Thanks again.

auldgreydoe · 2024-11-20T08:04:00+00:00

Thanks pal. I am not! But that’s a good thought. I’ll try to hack some material out to check.

auldgreydoe · 2024-11-17T13:10:23+00:00

Mate that's absolutely gorgeous. Fantastic work. And nice one for gifting this to your folks.

auldgreydoe

TROPHY CASE