This is probably the worst spot on the whole floor. I'm chipping out some of the splitting wood and sanding the rest down smooth.
Stuff like this adds character to the floor.




I believe this is after one of the 36 grit sandings...Might be the 60 grit.
I'm slowly working my way up through the grits. I did several passes with the 36, 3 passes with the 60 and two passes with the 80 grit so far.

This is all vacuumed up after the 80 grit sanding.
I also did the edges of the room with my belt sander with 80 grit until I broke the sander (got an extension cord stuck in it) and then my 5" random orbit palm sander with 100 grit paper on it (my last piece with the roughest grit I have for it).

The 80 grit is the highest I got at Home Depot for my big sander...Was the highest they had at the one I was at. I checked on my fotolog and saw that I went up to 100 grit with the machine last time. I found 100 grit screen at the Home Depot I went to last night (a different one) so I'll be doing one more sanding with the big machine this weekend (well, 2 more...I'll do 2 complete passes with it).

Unfortunately I did some reading on the Minwax message boards...And I need to go up to 180 grit (do 120 and 150 grit first) before I start to stain and poly. It also said I have to use my drywall pole sander with sanding screens for the higher grits and not the machine to minimize swirls on the floor. I'm going to do it this time because when I did my living room floor 2 years ago I got a lot of swirls in the finished product...The stain and poly really brought them out. Most people say they don't notice them...But when I look at the floor they are pretty much all I see.

The palm sander is doing a great job on the edges for me and also on any low spots in the room that still have remnants of the old finish on them still.

I know it's taking me a long time to do this floor...And I have a long way to go. But I want to do this one as best I can, the perfectionist in me wants to see just how good I can do it...How good the final result can be. If it takes me too too long...I may just put carpet in the other bedrooms, it's much faster. And that way at least a potential buyer will see just how good they can look. Who knows though, I do have a lot more of the sanding stuff for the machine....So maybe in a month when I move stuff back into this room I'll go ahead and start on the next one.