Thanks for the compliments! Love the random color pattern of your floor! Very cool, indeed! And a fun story of how you collected random tiles for a while to be able to do this!
I used a rag and a bucket to apply the stripper to the floors. After getting the floors nice and wet, and letting the stripper sit for as long as the directions called for, I scrubbed them really well with my Hoover Floor-A-Matic scrubber. The Floor-A-Matic also has a 'wet pickup' feature, so I was able to suck up the dirty water. Then I cleaned out the Floor-A-Matic really well, and put hot water in the tank and rinsed/scrubbed the floor to neutralize the stripper. I did that twice, to be sure there was no stripper left on the floor. Then I believe I let the floor dry overnight.
I actually forgot to use a sealer, but with as many coats of wax that I put on, I figured it probably wasn't necessary.
I applied the wax on my hands and knees; starting in one corner and working my way out of the room. (Invest in Knee Pads!) I'd pour some wax out, then spread it out with a rag. Pour some wax out, spread it with a rag. Directions say to use a string mop, but I found a rag worked well, and I had more control over it. I eventually got into a rhythm, and it was a snap. The hardest part was waiting between coats of wax. But seeing the floor come to such a high gloss was amazing. I could have put more and more coats of wax on, but finally stopped at 5, I think.
THe pictures are from using the liquid wax. Not sure that I have any phtots from when I did the paste wax thing a few years ago. The other thing I noticed about paste wax, is it left the floors a little more "sticky" than the liquid wax, as well. I imagine you could probably use lambswool pads on a buffer to keep the luster up on the liquid wax, but am not 100% sure.
I saw your other tread asking about polishers - and I do hear very good things about the Electrolux polishers, but I favor the Hoover Polishers; they were well made and pads/brushes are still pretty readily available. You may have to hunt for them a bit, but they're out there. I'll have to take a look, but I may have an extra Hoover Polisher that I'd be willing to sell. I could probably cobble together a set of brushes, but it may take me a while to locate all of those things.
The range is a TOL 1956 GE. Yes, we do love our small appliances, for sure!
Found a few more pictures. First one is the two types of floor polish Home Depot had, we went with the "wet look" on the left. It was a bit more expensive, but you can see what the finished results looked like. Another was taking a break from scrubbing.. and the last was another "finshed product" where you can see some of my polishers, lined up ready to go.
