Ourada Designs

Back at The Fight Revisited project in Coeur d’Alene, working on one of the less glamorous but most important parts of the job.

Right now, I’m grinding the concrete flat on the main floor.

It’s slow, dusty work, but getting the substrate right is what everything else depends on.

If the substrate isn’t flat, nothing that comes after it will be either, which can lead to hollow spots, squeaky boards, broken tongues, and possibly wobbly furniture.

The Beech floor project in Post Falls wrapped up nicely.

After the final buffing off of Odie's Oil, I grabbed a few final photos, and it’s always satisfying to see a floor reach that last stage.

Solid work, clean details, and a finish that lets the wood speak for itself.

It’s always great being a part of the Wright Brothers Remodeling and Sunrooms. The team is filled with good people who are so nice to work with.

At the Spokane Preservation Advocates event I attended earlier this year, I ran into Pat, the owner of 509 Garage. Pat asked me to refinish the floors in a rental home he and his wife own in West Central Spokane.

It’s about 800 square feet of old fir flooring that’s been sanded before, so I’m taking it slow to preserve as much as possible. The wood looks like two different species, but it’s really just different cuts showing their character.

The floor needed some holes patched and old patches redone. The wood is old-growth fir from the early to mid-1900s, and the wood I patch with should match from the same era. You just can’t go and buy it. Luckily, Andrey Grebenshchikov from AG Elite Floor Design had some aged flooring in his stores and gifted me some to make this patchwork. Thanks, Andrey!!!

We’ll be doing a matte natural finish to let the original floor glow again.

(These pics show the progress from patchwork to nearly finished.)