Did the Oil-Based Polyurethane Work Out? + Fume Mitigation!

Hi Everyone,

This is a continuation of Wednesday’s post, however, I didn’t get a chance to show you the final results, and more. If you missed part 1, please start from the top, but if you’d like to skip to part 2, please click the link below.

Part 2 Begins Here

Wednesday, October 9, 2024

Thank you for your kind comments as we complete the last hurdle of this 16+ month renovation marathon.

 

However, before we go on, my heart goes out to all of our readers in Florida and surrounding states who are in the path of yet another disastrous hurricane. Millions of you have been ordered to evacuate.

Before we get into the latest with the floor saga, I want to share some news about my long-time business coach and friend, Marsha Stopa. I met Marsha ten years ago at a professional seminar in Florida. She began following my blog and, a year later, started helping me launch and market Laurel’s Rolodex and then the Paint and Palette Collection.

I’m writing about Marsha now because she lives in the exquisite mountains of western North Carolina, a heavily wooded area devastated by Hurricane Helene’s high winds, torrential rainfall, and flooding less than two weeks ago.

 

Thankfully, Marsha is physically okay, but her gorgeous and beloved property was trashed.

 

The damage is immense and beyond her means to clean up. Insurance will not cover even a tenth of what it will cost to restore some semblance of normalcy.

 

There are several ways you can help Martha, and maybe yourself, in the process. Please read her recent post here to learn more about Martha’s experience and cool work.

 

At the end of the post are numerous links to subscribe to her newsletter and hire her for copywriting, newsletters, marketing, and more. If none of that interests you, there is also a GoFundMe page if you can swing it to donate. If not, that is okay.

 

Many thanks for considering my request. Marsha will be immensely grateful for any support you can provide as she rebuilds her life after this and other unwarranted reversals she’s dealt with in the last two years.

 

Okay, back to what’s going on with the floors.

 

Over the weekend, I spent about three hours taping off the sections Chris needed to tone. I didn’t mind doing it; it was kind of relaxing. At the same time, I was incredulous that the floor guy didn’t keep his promises.

Yesterday (Monday), Chris toned 90% of the floor area that needed to be toned. That is, at most, 20% of the living room’s total square footage.

To explain how that looks, please compare these two images.

Below is the floor from about 7 weeks ago after the poor stain and horrid water-based polyurethane job.

 

Below, except for the super light strips he toned today, you can see where Chris toned the boards on Monday to make them blend in better.

This is only phase one. After all the boards are toned, they will get a coat of lightly tinted oil-based polyurethane and, most likely, a second coat in the living room.

Below is the fireplace wall from last August with the plastic-looking Bona Traffic HD.

 

Below is how the floor looked in the early afternoon after it was toned yesterday. Most of the floor below does not have the new oil-based polyurethane finish. Again, this was only phase one to correct the too-pale new wood boards.

 

I did take another image after Chris put on the first coat of lightly tinted Bona Woodline, and oil-modified polyurethane over this half of the room. However, it was late in the day, and the lighting made the colors look muddy.  I will show you much more soon. In the meantime, I’m super happy with the result of Chris’ toning. We worked together to come up with the best color. Above you are looking at the tone section and also the screened floor. Because of the screening process, the floor color looks a little more cool than it is.

Tomorrow, Chris will do the other half of the room. He wants to go slow to ensure no blotchiness or streaking in the lightly tinted finish. Bona Woodline has a subtle amber color to begin with.

 

Were you able to stay in the apartment, Laurel?

 

Thank you for asking. ;]

Yesterday, an hour after Chris left, the air in my bedroom had never smelled fresher, with no trace of mineral spirits. Mineral spirits are the solvent that goes into the oil-based polyurethane, which makes it stink to high heaven. They also contain the Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) we’re trying to avoid.

 

Our first challenge was not to infect the rest of the building and my neighbors with anything toxic. Of course, I’d hate it if they did that to me!

 

To that end, here’s what we did:

 

• The top of the stairwell is tightly covered with thick plastic* as is the big opening to the living room upstairs. (please scroll up to see the image of the stairwell covered in plastic.)
• Then, two windows are open, one in the living room and one in the den. Each room has a powerful air scrubber with large tubes that shoot out the bad air, thus removing 80% of the VOCs and smells with an activated charcoal filter.
• We also turned on the mini-split AC and cranked up the heat. Yesterday was rainy and humid; we needed dry, warm air.

 

In addition, I purchased three small Medify air purifiers with activated charcoal filters.

 

Please click the image below to check out this little but effective unit on Amazon.

 

 

I figured that three babies were better than one big one. I placed one in the kitchen, one near the bottom of the stairs, and one in my room about three feet from my perch. Plus, I have my old air filter by the closed doors, with a towel at the bottom gap.

These air purifiers work very well, and they’re not expensive. I will continue to use them while the oil-based polyurethane cures, which takes at least two weeks. If you don’t already know, it’s important to know that not all air purifiers filter out VOCs. A HEPA filter is insufficient. You need an activated carbon charcoal filter. The science behind it is that the VOCs BIND to the activated charcoal.

Let’s go back to what else happened Monday and today.

 

Monday, as soon as we got the color we wanted, which only took about 5 minutes, Chris donned his respirator, and I made a hasty exit, sealing the doorway after me.

 

An hour after Chris finished, I still didn’t smell a thing.

However, a few hours after that, I did. You see, I opened my bedroom window underneath where one of the air scrubbers was venting. Now, the air runs through the activated charcoal filter, which traps most of the VOCs. I wasn’t smelling mineral spirits but a slight chemical odor. It was humid, and the air was almost perfectly still. If it had been dry and windy, it wouldn’t have been a problem, I don’t think.

So, I closed the window, turned on the AC, and went to the grocery store. When I returned, it was fine. Also, by then, the floor was mostly dry.

Still, I’ve read that not all VOCs have an odor, and with everything I’ve already been through, it’s making me nervous about us being exposed to more toxins.

 

Today, Chris finished about three times that tomorrow, it will be even more.

 

Therefore, I did the sensible thing and decided to look for a cheap hotel nearby with a rating of at least 4.4.

 

Haha.

There was nothing under $500 a night.

A friend of mine did offer to let me stay over if necessary, but she’s just finishing renovating her two bathrooms, and even though she was kind enough to offer, I don’t want to impose.

 

Then, I looked on Airbnb, widened my search, and found a beautiful one-bedroom in a brownstone one mile from me.

 

The base price is only $144.00/night, and the bottom-line price, including taxes, cleaning fee, etc., is $444.00 for two nights. That’s a steal. So, I grabbed it, packed a few things, and headed over at around 6:30 this evening.

I know that many of you are breathing (no pun intended) a sigh of relief that I left the oil-based polyurethane behind, even with all our precautions. I don’t think the levels of VOCs I was getting are dangerous. However, who knows?

Besides, since moving back at the end of last November, I haven’t slept one night outside my unit. (well, except for the 25 day reprieve at my neighbor, upstairs.) This constitutes a vacation, haha. Oh, wait. I did stay in a hotel a couple of nights in January when they were demoing the wainscoting and masonry wall for the lower entrance door.

 

*********************************************************

Part 2 Begins Here

Sunday October 13, 2024

Hi Everyone,

Well, we did it. Chris toned the new wood to blend in with the old wood and then applied a coat of Bona Satin Woodline oil-based polyurethane over the whole thing.

Chris had a helper on Wednesday and could coat the den and the second half of the living room. By 12:30 PM, the new (toned) wood had two coats, and everything else had one coat. There was still a layer of sealer and a layer of water-based polyurethane underneath the oil-based polyurethane.

 

It is fine to put oil-based polyurethane over the water-based as long as it is fully cured.

 

I would wait a month for water-based, even though it could probably be done sooner, but why chance it? We waited two months. The finish was screened, removing the top layer of poly. Then, the floor was ready to accept the new finish.

 

In the early afternoon on Wednesday, October 9th, Chris sent me a picture of the newly polyed floor, which was still wet.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

 

Mission (Impossible) accomplished.

 

Then I went for a long walk and had a pedicure on the south end. It was another gorgeous day.

On the way back to my AirBnB across from Boston University, I stopped back at my place, and only four hours later, the floor was dry to the touch.  (below) I didn’t dare walk on it, and it DID stink to high heaven, but only behind the plastic wall. It worked amazingly well at keeping the smell out, along with the air scrubbers. Knowing how harmful the toxic fumes are, I quickly closed the plastic barrier and went downstairs to my room via the building staircase.

I didn’t smell a thing outside the apartment, either upstairs or downstairs, and I have a sensitive sense of smell. Phew! I was relieved. I saw my lovely neighbor upstairs, who was fine with the air scrubbers. Thank God! It was such a huge relief.

All was going swimmingly on Wednesday, the third day Chris worked on the floors. In fact, with the two air scrubbers on, the air was so fresh that I decided to leave the AirBnb in the evening and sleep in my own bed. The main reason was that I had a little day trip to Hull, MA (a coastal suburb of Boston) the next morning and needed all the sleep I could get. Plus, the heat wasn’t on at the AirBnb, and it was down in the 40s at night.

 

And then, at 9:30 at night, my worst fear came to pass.

 

(please scroll to the bottom of the page to find out.)

I’ll leave you with one image of the ickypoo floor before. (below)

 

And, after Chris worked his magic. (below)

Chris is amazing. He first toned the new boards, but all of the wood is lightly toned to blend better. He uses artist’s oil pigments in the polyurethane, but for the last overall coat, he uses much less pigment.

 

Right after I took this image, I took myself on a very long walk to the Trader Joe’s at the Boston Seaport.

 

Here I am with Boston Harbor in the background. Please excuse the remnants of my popcorn snack a few minutes before. haha

 

 

Thank you to so many who donated to lovely Marsha who’s property was devastated in Hurricane Helene. However, the link to her wonderful blog post on Substack got erased for the first several hours after publishing. Here it is again, as well as the link to her GoFundMe page, if you’re able to help out.

xo,

 

***Please check out the recently updated HOT SALES!

There is now an Amazon link on my home page and below. Thank you for the suggestion!

Please note that I have decided not to create a membership site. However, this website is very expensive to run. To provide this content, I rely on you, the kind readers of my blog, to use my affiliate links whenever possible for items you need and want. There is no extra charge to you. The vendor you’re purchasing from pays me a small commission.

To facilitate this, some readers have asked me to put

A link to Amazon.com is on my home page.

Please click the link before items go into your shopping cart. Some people save their purchases in their “save for later folder.” Then, if you remember, please come back and click my Amazon link, and then you’re free to place your orders. While most vendor links have a cookie that lasts a while, Amazon’s cookies only last up to 24 hours.

Thank you so much!

I very much appreciate your help and support!

xo,

 

***PS: Here’s what happened last week at 9:30 PM

 

There was a scornful complaint about the floor, based only on the fact they could hear the air scrubbers when walking past my unit. I can’t go into too many details. But instead of asking me directly, he/she/they/them made many false assumptions. The bottom line, however, is that I was being accused of poisoning everyone living in the building.

 

However, they had no idea what we had done to prevent that from happening.

 

This entire time, there has been no evidence of our having done this work inside my unit. This was the “mission impossible” that Chris and I worked hard to execute so that they would have NO idea. And here I was, being accused of doing the opposite.

To say I was upset is an understatement.

The tell was the air scrubber and extraction unit. They could hear that, but that is all. Still, they could’ve asked me directly instead of writing the entire building what a selfish ass I am.

Then, I had to write a long email explaining everything we had done; no apology, but the accuser calmed down. If we had stunk up the whole building, that would’ve been another matter, but that was not the case.

 

So, is the smell all gone now inside your unit?

 

It’s not totally gone, but it’s getting better every day. The smell is similar to rancid cooking oil. Still, it’s only in the unit. I’m trying every natural remedy, including activated charcoal, onions, vinegar, baking soda, and coffee grounds. The windows are open a lot of the time. The air is vented in and out and runs through the air scrubber.

Gosh, I even lit a fire yesterday. (I’m Sorry. I should’ve removed the police tape first, lol.)

 

 

That might have helped the air a little. It certainly made me feel better, and it’s making me feel even better looking at how lovely this is.

If you came here from the post dated October 16, 2024, please click here to get back to the post.

xo,

 

***Please check out the recently updated HOT SALES!

There is now an Amazon link on my home page and below. Thank you for the suggestion!

Please note that I have decided not to create a membership site. However, this website is very expensive to run. To provide this content, I rely on you, the kind readers of my blog, to use my affiliate links whenever possible for items you need and want. There is no extra charge to you. The vendor you’re purchasing from pays me a small commission.

To facilitate this, some readers have asked me to put

A link to Amazon.com is on my home page.

Please click the link before items go into your shopping cart. Some people save their purchases in their “save for later folder.” Then, if you remember, please come back and click my Amazon link, and then you’re free to place your orders. While most vendor links have a cookie that lasts a while, Amazon’s cookies only last up to 24 hours.

Thank you so much!

I very much appreciate your help and support!