How do you refinish an original hardwood floor?
Sunday, March 21st, 2010 at
4:54 pm
Our house was built in 1905 and we pulled up the carpet in the foyer buy antibiotics and would like to refinish the hardwood. Do we just sand and stain and seal? Its pretty uneven and there are some gaps between planks of wood. Any suggestions?
In a nutshell, yes. However, it is much harder than it sounds. Check out the link for a step by step process.
Go to Home Depot and rent a floor refinisher. It’s like a big belt sander. It’s made strictly for refinishing a wood floor. First off, you need to get on your hands and knees to make sure all the nails are not flush with the wood. You may need to do some pounding. As for the gap’s you may need to replace with new pieces. Plan on re-staining so everything matches. As for the high/low spots. If it’s not to bad, sanding the high spots first might solve the problem. This is the answer only if your going to do it yourself. Any major floor Restoration should be sub-ed out.
A lot of work but well worth it. You will need to rent at least two pieces of equipment. A drum or belt sander to all but the edges and an edger. The drum or belt sander will even the old floor and remove the old finish. You should start with about 60 grit, go to about 80 or 100 on both middle and edges. Then rent a floor orbital sander and use 120 grit. Fill in holes with Famo O Wood trowel grade grain filler before the 120.
Finish with 3 coats of oil based polyurethane, water based if you are in a hurry and don’t care if it will last less time.
I would not recommend doing this project yourself. Even the DIY network says this is only for the VERY ADVANCED do it yourselfer; and they recommend hiring a professional because it is very easy to ruin your floor forever if you accidentally leave the sander in one place too long. Plus you have to get the stain even and the varnish even.
Trust me on this one hire a professional if they screw up they have to pay you for a new floor or fix it, they will be able to do a much quicker and much better looking job and you will be much happier with the result. I would hate for you to have to replace what is probably a very beautiful old floor because you made a silly mistake.
Hi, I think I would call a professional for this one. It takes alot,of sanding,starting out with a 60 grade. The floor might have been refinished one to many times. Sounds like it with the unevenness.You might not be able to. So, get the right answer and call out someone,than you’ll know for sure.It’s lots of work to do it yourself. Bye.
I believe your best bet is to hire a professional so they can tell you if it structurally sound enough to withstand the repair process and also replace any missing or warped boards with similar wood for aesthetic continuity. A service guarantee would be ideal as this is dealing with historic materials.