Red Shed Gets a Facelift ** Best Instant Hardwood Floor Refinishers

The Red Shed REALLY needed a facelift! We sold as much as we possibly could in December at rock bottom prices to clear things out. We bought about 20 floor products to help, and we will tell the winners below.

See our lovely walls? All those white dots used to be holes. We have absolutely tortured our walls with nails and screws and brads and picture hangers.

The floors? Love hardwood, but "Note to self....next time you open an antique store, go for indestructable wood LAMINATE". Repeated dragging of furniture across wood floors creates lots of :

So we pushed all the furniture to one side of the room......

Then spackled, and rubbed, cleaned and painted. Up and down lots of ladders. Thank goodness for textured walls that hide a myriad of sins.

Then we proceeded to figure out what would take off black scuffs, paint scuffs (again from dragging painted furniture), paint drops (too cold to paint outside),wax, glue, and what we think was epoxy, and many mystery globs!

Next, figuring out what would hide the scratches, and shine the floor. We spent LOTS AND LOTS of time on our hands and knees.......

After only 9 hours of nonstop work.....fabulous results! Beautiful clean walls.....and Shiny, healthy floors..............

The winners? Goof Off to remove all scuffs including black marks and paint. Its almost instant plus you get a little happy from the fumes. To cover the scratches, we used Howards Restore-A-Finish in Dark Oak and thinned it with some mineral spirits. We used the pointed end of a rag dipped in the Howards to just go over the scratch. We then cleaned with Orange Glo Hardwood Cleaner on a microfiber mop. We went over everything again with a Swiffer to remove any left over dirt or dust particles. Final step was a coat of Orange Glo hardwood refinisher, which seemed to be a light water based poly. It dried quickly (15-20 minutes with ceiling fans) to a nice healthy shine.

What DIDNT work: Orange Glo hardwood cleaner and refinisher IN ONE. Scratch Cover magic markers, colors were bad and it just looked like we drew on the floor. Rejuvinate was OK but not as good as the OG refinisher and took longer to dry. Gel stain and Howards by themselves were too dark. None of the instant "refinishers" worked at all on filling in or hiding the scratches, so you still have to stain and blend your scratches before applying the poly "refinisher".

The furniture is moved back in and now we can finally SHOP and bring in new inventory! We are still trying to figure out a system so that we put less holes in the walls. All the mirrors and paintings may not be back up yet, but you can still buy them from where they are leaning.

So come visit us at the Red Shed! Don't forget that in between our Bi-Monthly Saturday Sales, we are open Monday - Friday 9 - 5. We have some wonderful new velvet pillows, and lots of vintage angels for your angel for Valentines day. We will be adding new items daily.

Finally, Everyone is always asking about our paint colors. We would not change the color because we probably get 5 or 6 requests every month to share the colors because they are so fabulous. It is actually 3 colors that compliment each other and change from blue to gray to green as the sun moves.

We purchased the paint at ICI Paint Center. It is a Glidden Ultra Hide and the colors are Valspar "Eiffel Tower, London Smoke, and Green Froth".

Join our Soldered Charm and Textile Altered Art Classes
http://www.redshedonline.com/altered_art_classes.html

Come with us to shop at the Paris Flea Markets!
Join our group traveling to Paris in April 09 (ONLY 1 SPOT LEFT!)
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Next Saturday Sale... Feb 28th