So, the floors in my home were beginning to wear thin. The polyurethane on them was literally shaved off, leading them to change color whenever they got the slightest amount of moisture on them. Having floors redone is not only painful, it is expensive. Thinking about moving our furniture out, and vacating the home, was only my first problem. I also worried about who I was going to hire. Post construction services are an additional expense I wasn’t sure I wanted to deal with.

We decided to do it ourselves

I let my husband do the interviewing, assuming that he knew what he was doing, and he insisted that he had found the perfect service. Cheap, and experienced, he convinced me that they were going to do an excellent job. Because they were cheap, but not as cheap as we needed, I decided that I would do my own clean up instead of hiring a service, to save a little money. Not having a large budget for our renovations, I thought it would be the best way to go.

Knowing that it was going to be two days of hell, we moved the family down to the basement and hunkered in for a good two days of loud noise and noxious fumes from the stain. Not wanting to disturb the company, I made sure that we all stayed downstairs and out of their way. Toward the end of the first day, I started to make my way up the stairs only to find that I could barely see two feet in front of my eyes. The sawdust was so thick, that I literally couldn’t see. It was clouding the air, dusting the floors and getting into the nooks and crannies. It was then that I realized that this may be a bigger job than I thought. I began to regret letting my husband do the hiring and not hiring a residential cleaning service.

I made my way upstairs to “talk” to the sanders who spoke very little English and got the gist that they were not a dustless sanding company. Although I just assumed that they would be, coming into our residential home, I was shocked to find that they had completely destroyed our home. Not accommodating by putting up tarps, or securing any of our furniture, the mess was out of control. I sat on the stairs and started crying thinking about it all getting into my pantry, in the kitchen, even into my toddlers toys. It felt like nothing would be the same again.

Finally my husband hired someone

My husband, feeling horrible about hiring the company that he did, hired a company to help out and clean the home. He knew that by the state I was in, if he didn’t make things right, he may be looking for a new home. Although having very little in the budget, he was able to pay someone to get to all those places that I wasn’t sure would ever be clean again. Taking a fraction of the time, they were able to save my home, and my sanity, from utter despair.

The next time you have someone redo your hardwood floors make sure to hire someone who has a dustless system and don’t think that you can handle the mess on your own. Having someone to come in post construction to clean the place, is money that was well spent.