1966 Haw Creek Pine, Adhesive Removal and Refinish

This 1966 Haw Creek home had original pine under carpet, and the carpet had been glued down with plenty of adhesive. Whoever cut the carpet out went too deep with the razor blades in places, scoring the wood itself — cuts like that cannot be pulled out, only sanded past.

The Hummel drum sander did the heavy work, cutting through the adhesive and the old surface until the field was back to clean wood. Adhesive loads paper fast, so the coarse passes are worked in stages rather than pushed through.

From there the Bona PowerDrive planetary sander, running on the HEPA dust containment system, flattened and refined the field. The planetary scratch pattern is what lets a soft wood like pine take finish evenly, without the dish-out a drum can leave between the harder and softer grain.

The floor was finished with Loba Easy Finish and topped with two coats of Loba 2K Duo in satin. No stain — the pine's own color, knots and grain are the point of a floor like this, and the satin sheen shows them without going glossy.

In the finished photographs the adhesive is gone and the floor reads as a warm, honest pine that has been in this house since 1966. Look closely and the razor cuts are still there — sanding far enough to remove them would have taken too much life out of the floor, so they remain as part of its history.