Parquet Floor

I hate to be redundant and keep referencing the same tired old post, but I must. The last item within mentioned us contemplating refinishing the old original parquet floor in our dining room. We were planning on simply carpeting the room, as we have plenty of projects going. But that darn 117-year-old wood kept calling my name. Yeah, that's right...

Tearing up the old carpet was easy, but not fun. The floor had obviously gotten wetter than a dining room should ever get, added to the age of the wood, and we have the makings of a big and potentially scary project. Thousands of old nails and staples were pulled, and much of the old carpet padding had to be scraped.As if the job wasn't challenging enough, there was a decent sized section of floor missing near the door. This meant having to tear up parts of the floor from other rooms to fit into the areas without parquet. The pieces all had to be moved by hand and glued down, one by one. The biggest individual piece was 15 inches long by about an inch wide. Most pieces were only 9 inches long. All these little pieces of wood were very dry and brittle, and yet they needed to fit together perfectly in order to keep the pattern intact. It was quite challenging.

(Anyone wanna take a guess as to why some of the flooring was gone? Ok, everyone, raise your hands if you didn't suspect the answer had something to do with termites. Now, all of you with your hands raised, repeat after me... "I just don't get it, and I will strive to improve recognition of key themes throughout history when reading." Thanks for your obedience.)
After piecing the floor back together, it was time to sand. I still hurt. Badly. My ears are still ringing. What? But the whole sanding process gave us a lot of hope that this floor was going to look pretty good.
The industrial floor sander didn't do a very good job. My friend Brett is smiling in this picture because he wasn't currently sanding by hand. Essentially, the room was sanded by hand. It took forever and wasn't much fun.
Once sanded and cleaned, Robyn started to stain... pretty exciting stuff... and also, again, it's exciting to be working side-by-side with the wifey. Teamwork never felt so good.
Seriously, people, how cool is this????????
I'd say it was worth the work...
It's not done. It still needs a couple coats of polyurethane. We just hope nothing gets screwed up between now and completion, as this room is rocking.