Hello,

We could not stay in our house when they did the poly finish, the fumes were very strong and would give you a strong headache within a few minutes. I don't think 3-4 hours is enough, we did not sleep at our house for the 2-3 nights when they did the poly.

Elaine

No way! We even had a water-based poly used on ours, and we stayed in a hotel. I wouldn't recommend staying.

We had 3 rooms of our downstairs polyed. If the poly was put down in the morning, we were able to sleep upstairs with the doors closed. You could definitely smell it, but no headache. If the poly was done in the afternoon, there was no way we could stay home the smell was so strong. We had to sleep at a relatives house. We ended up getting 6 coats of poly to get the finish the way we wanted (long story). Our two cats stayed home throughout the process in an upstairs, closed bedroom with a window cracked for fresh air.

we wouldn't have been able to get upstairs to our bedrooms so we left. My wonderful neighbor put us up for a week so we were comfortable and out of the fumes. Our cat stayed in the basement but he is indoor/outdoor and we were just next door so we saw him every day.

We refinished the ground floor and had one coat of stain and 3 coats of oil-based poly put on. We did it in 2 stages-- the first two coats in round one, with nothing in the kitchen, and the final coat after the cabs and appliances had been set. If I ever do it again, I would just get all the refinishing done at once.

Our family stayed home during the refinishing. We were able to because:
- we did it in the fall in fine weather, so we were able to open windows and turn on fans.
- we have a basement in-law apartment, so I was able to camp down there with the kids. My husband was away, thankfully, so the kids and I made a game of it. We have an extra kitchen down there and a basement exit to the yard, so it worked fine. I think the basement was better than staying upstairs because fumes rise. The pets stayed with us in the basement.

I agree that you should really push to get the poly applied in the morning, so that fumes dissipate as much as possible by bedtime. I thought the stain fumes were worse than the poly.

I don't think I suffered any ill effects wopiur wpoeiur jeao;ie aoihgaba ha ha.

We had 2 bedrooms done over the summer. I would say the poly was completed by 4 in the afternoon. By the time we went to sleep we were able to go upstairs and sleep there. The windows were open in both those rooms, the doors were closed. If the windows had been closed, not sure if we could've done it. Not sure if where you live will enable you to open the windows this time of year.

Thanks for all of your responses. It's pretty cold here, so looks like we'll need to plan to stay with friends...hmm, let's see who's lucky number is at the top of the list ;-). On the upside, maybe we'll rent a "pod" to put our stuff and get the whole first floor done in a single phase, i.e. 4 days instead of 8. Always looking for the silver lining....

I hope you speak to your Vet about your cats.

Seaglass,

I would love to hear what you end up doing with your floors and how it works out. We are also considering the idea of a pod because we need to have the entire first floor refinished at the same time the hardwood floors go in the new kitchen. And since I am so not looking forward to that, I can't even imagine doing it in stages! I just want it all done and over with at once - we do have an inlaw apartment in our basement, but since the renovation is going on down there also, as well as it being one of our storage locations for boxes and such, not sure I could deal with being down there for 4 or 5 days - ugh! I may have to just suck it up and do it though since the cost of renting a pod, as well as staying at a hotel will add significantly to the budget :) And we have a dog to consider. I hate to put her through even more since she's already been stressed during the renovation that's been going on for almost 5 months.

Traci29:Will let you know how we make out, but it won't be done for about a month or so. The contractor thinks we can find space for our stuff in the spare rooms/upstairs/garage, so it doesn't look like we'll use a pod. I did a little research on the pods and although not cheap, they were less than I thought. It seemed like the minimum rental period was a month, although you could have them take it away sooner without any credit for unused time.

debs3: We will definitely check with the vet. DH is hoping to have them poly in the am and he is planning to stay here overnight and will be checking on the cats multiple times during the day. We hope to put them in an upstairs room as far from the floor work (first floor) as possible--close that door and seal it to the best of our ability with painter's tape and towels. Leave the window slightly cracked but crank the heat up to keep them cozy. Our cats are really homebodies, and they don't travel well at all. That said, we love them dearly and wouldn't dream of putting them in harms way. Talking to the vet is a great idea. We'll do that tomorrow. If the vet advises against having them in the house, we'll have to find a local pet-friendly hotel and hope they can tough out the relocation with us. I don't think they'd board well at the vets. Anyway, thanks for helping me think this pet issue through!

It's soooo nice when a poster remembers to come back to let everyone know how her/his situation turned out-- thank you for that! Sounds like you had a good plan that worked.

I stayed in my house also - with my cats. Humans were gone during the day - cats stayed home. Refinishing was going on upstairs, cats were downstairs. We stayed in a lower level bedroom. It was fine.

When we had our kitchen floors finished, I sent my wife and children to my mother in laws. I stayed in the house upstairs with all of the windows open.

After performing a google search on moisture cure, I learned that it probably wasn't such a good idea to stay in the house during the 48 hour period after the second application.

Seaglass7,

Thanks so much for the update - I had almost forgotten until now when we are about to start our floors!

We are also thinking of using the water-based, rather than oil-based poly, so had a few questions for you:
1) Did you use a water or oil based stain prior to the poly? I've read different things, but one person said that water based stain actually looked fake, so they used the oil based stain, then the water based sealer.
2) How many coats of the water-based poly and how long after staining? Again, I've read different things - such as needing to wait 2 days for stain to dry prior to using poly and needing to use more coats of water-based (such as at least 4 coats vs. 2-3 for oil-based).
3) What color did you stain your hardwood? We are going with a very dark espresso stain and I've also read that the reason some people like oil based poly is that it further darkens the wood. I just want to make sure that I have the stain dark enough if going with the water based sealer.
4) How soon did you move back into the space, put furniture on the floors, etc?

Thanks again for remembering to post an update!

traci29,

Congrats on making it to floors! I'll try to answer your questions as best as I can:

1. we used an oil based stain. We used Bona drifast stain and Bona mega poly (water based).

2. We used 3 coats of poly, although Bona says 2 coats is enough. It's been tough as nails. Really pleased with it. We sanded and stained on Saturday, then first coat of poly went down on Mon am--I'd say about 40 hours before the first coat of poly. Second and third coats went down on Tuesday--one in the am, one at night. The product we used recommended 24-48 hours of drying time for the stain before poly. You should check yours, but one thing I learned from research is that if the stain is not totally dry before the poly goes on, the floors looks bad. I think it's hazy and bubbles, but I don't remember exactly.

3. I'm so jealous of your dark floors!!!I'm sure they'll be beautiful. We live near the beach and the sand blows in all the time---then "sandpapers" the floors as people walk thru, etc. Hence, we went with a medium stain that brought up the grain to better hide the scratches, etc. Oil based poly tends to "yellow" with age--a process called "ambering". I have oil based poly on the bedroom floors and since they're red oak, the yellowing has given them an orange type color--I'm not too fond of it. Hoping to avoid that with the water based poly. But with your dark expresso, I don't know if it would make any difference in color. If you post over on the kitchen forum there are lots of people who've put in gorgeous dark floors recently--hopefully they can give you some advice.
4. In terms of moving back in, the Bona website gave us specific direction. We could walk on it the day after the final coat of poly (socks, no shoes, and definitely not bare feet since the oil from your feet leaves a residue--who knew??). We waited a week to put furniture back. Rugs are the toughest thing on the new floors, and since most of our furniture is on rugs, we waited the full week.

I think I got them all, but if you have more questions ask away.

Traci29--

DH just reminded me that we put the first coat of poly down on Sunday---it wasn't initially planned that way but when we chose the drifast stain, the floor guys said they'd come Sunday and see if it was dry enough to start poly. So, it was only about 20 hours or so between stain and first coat, then two coats of poly were put down on the next day (three days total--sand/stain, poly, 2 additional coats of poly). But, I'd check the particular stain and poly you're using. The Bona products are advertised as having quick drying formulas and I wouldn't want to steer you in the wrong direction. We were also cautioned to keep the heat up over night to aid in the drying which we did.

Seaglass7,

Thanks so much for answering all my questions so quickly - I really appreaciate it! We just decided on a company for the floors and are planning to use the Bona products, so I'm very happy to hear you guys had good results and were pleased with it. The only difference is that we're thinking of using the Bona Traffic, but the company said that in their experience, the Bona Mega and Bona Traffic seemed about the same (also same price with them). They actually do 4 coats of the poly, so hopefully that should be more than enough!

Our only issue right now is whether we're going to have them stain the floors prior to completely finishing construction. I'm practically certain that no matter how careful we are, the floors will be damaged if we don't wait until the very end - we've seen so far how careless most contractors are about the condition of the house! So I think we're going to have the company install all the new floors, then wait until cabinets, appliances, etc are in to sand, stain and refinish the rest of the hardwoods thoughout the house at the same time.

I may very quickly regret the decision to go with dark floors :) Right now we have a medium finish on white oak hardwood and I've always wanted dark floors. I'm sure they will be harder to maintain and keep clean, not to mention we have a dog, but I'm going to try it anyway. I've planned everything around having dark floors at this point, so feel as if I can't back out now!

Anyway, thanks again so much - your answers to my questions are very helpful!

Traci29,

We had the hardwoods installed then waited to stain & poly until most of the construction was complete. It gives you an opportunity to fully inspect the floors over time and fix any split boards, etc. I don't think you'd want to stain early because then you'd have to really clean up the floor before you poly (don't want all that dirt sealed in!)
We did buy several quarts of stain from Bona, sanded 2' x 2' sections of the floor by hand and put the stain colors down so we could see them on our floors. It was worth the small effort and cost since we ruled out our top 2 contenders that way.

Traffic is more durable than mega, but since our floor guys had never used a two part product (which traffic is..) we went with the easier to apply Mega. If you haven't already, you need to choose the sheen of your poly. I learned from research that if you put down one sheen of poly and are not happy with it, the subsequent coats can be done in a different sheen. So check it after the first coat!

I'm sure you'll be happy with the Bona products. We've already road tested them with pets and kids and they still look new. Good luck!

Seaglass7,

It's as if you read my mind with your last post!! I realized that I forgot to ask you about the sheen of the poly after I posted but didn't go back immediately (I always think I'll remember later, but usually don't!). Then when I got up this morning I was trying to remember what it was that I had wanted to ask - it didn't hit me until reading this though :)

Anyway, what sheen did you choose? That's my hardest decision right now - I think I want the satin, but still afraid it will be too shiny. The company said that it's only reflective of natural light, but now I'm leaning toward matte due to having a dark stain. I'm glad to hear that it can be changed after the first coat! They are going to stain and poly a sample for us first also though, so that may make the decision for me.

Thanks again!

Traci29-

The sheen we chose was satin. Matte wan't an option in mega---there were 3 sheen levels--satin, semi-gloss and an even higher gloss I can't remember the name of.

I looked at the online product description for traffic and I only saw two sheen levels---satin and semi-gloss. Maybe I missed something, but I didn't see "matte" there.

The satin has almost no sheen to it--it's hardly noticeable. We went for the lowest gloss to hide the scratching issue I elaborated on before. But if your installers are doing samples you'll be fine--you'll get to see it. And they slightly abrade each coat of poly before applying the next coat, so that's why you can change to a different one. Of course, the earlier you make that decision, the better.

Did you decide to vacate? How about the pod? The one fabulous thing about getting to floors is that it means you're in the homestretch!

Seaglass7,

You're right - the Bona website states that Traffic is available in satin or semi-gloss so we'll have to ask them about that. They probably were thinking of the lower gloss (satin) being matte and the other as a bit more shiny. I will definitely go with satin since I don't want even semi-gloss. That is, unless the sample turns out to look totally unlike what I'm expecting!

As for vacating, yes, we will have to be out during the lower level at least - we think they can do the upper level without us leaving. Still it means that we'll need to be out for possibly up to 5 days (not sure how long it will take them since there's about 800 sq ft of hardwood on the lower level). There's no way for us to stay upstairs since the dog will have to go in and out. A friend has insisted that we can stay with her, so we may do that - she's very close by so would be convenient to still be at the house every day to check in.

We're still in the process of figuring out the furniture situation - we don't think we're doing a POD due to having to pay for it for a month, but I think we may need something. We'll probably just get some type of U-haul trailer since that's much less expensive than the POD.

Ugh - I really hope we're nearing the end of this! There's still a LOT left to be done though :)

We installed and finished ours in phases while living in the house. Using water based poly, I didn't have any real issues. Dust was more of a problem.