Bathroom Blues - Wooden Floor Woes

If it seems like it has been a while since I last posted that is true and directly related to my process of grieving and getting over my failure with the bathroom floors.  I didn't want to discuss it until everything was beautiful and finished..HA.  In case you've forgotten where we started...

Let me preface this by saying that I originally wanted tile on the floors but was woo'd by the desire to preserve as much original character of the house as possible.  Matt really liked the look of the wooden floorboards in bathrooms and eventually won me over (with reservations.)   We went round in circles about water getting under the boards and the poor condition of the boards, but forged ahead anyway.  (I really need to start trusting my gut on these things.)  The plan was to bring some light into the dingy space, I effectively wanted to clean and white wash the boards and go for a sort of Scandinavian-vibe.

Last June, Before and after sanding.

The boards had been stained, painted and heavily damaged over the years.  Seriously, we had some horrid, messed up floor issues.  Woodworm, nails, cracks, unevenness, and more.  This is one of the most telling photos.. some of the worst woodworm damage...

I used Osmo wood filler as an attempt to even things out.   The product itself I like, application is easy and it works as expected, but I think the boards were too far gone. 

Even a liberal application of wood filler didn't seem to help (though I told myself it did), and potentially made the situation even worse, by high-lighting the "character" as we called it.  We were rushed, trying to finish in only a week, but I think I could have spent a month on those floors and still not been happy.  So even though we weren't ready, we moved on to the next step.. long distance diy projects (and relationships) sometimes have a time crunch, deal with it. 

The Osmo oil is fantastic, but it can't work miracles.  Nothing wrong with the product, just our horrible floorboards.  We used a white tinted, water resistant oil recommended for floors.    

Working late into the night... I'm not holding a phone to my ear... You can also see the unfinished shower area.. the real bane of my life as all this was going on last June, during a heat wave.  I think shortly after this the love of my life went out and found pizza and a bottle of wine. 

Over two evenings I painstakingly painted on two coats of the white tinted Osmo oil and a final protective clear sealant.  Look at that gap... come on past me.. you were never going to accept that! This was the result. 

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I tried to love it.  I really did. I never would have admitted I didn't if Matt didn't finally say he didn't really like it.  Then it all came pouring out, I hated them.  They were still rough to the touch, uneven, the color was ok but not what I'd envisioned.  We probably would have been better off just painting them a high gloss white, because I hated these floorboards at this point.  

So then he said the magic words.. "lets go look at floor tile tomorrow" Is there any mystery as to why I love him?

Here is a final before and after of all the work that went in.. top is the unfinished hallway, bottom is the bathroom.  A major difference, too bad it was wasted effort... still I'm glad we tried.  Otherwise we would have always had a nagging feeling that the wood may have been a beautiful and cost saving style.  

While all this was going on, the tiler was working on the walls and we had a major curve ball with the actual bathroom fixtures delivery, tune in next week for that minor catastrophe.

-Nikki