How to Refinish a Hardwood Floor

Refinishing hardwood floors takes time, patience, and the proper tools and techniques, but the results can be extraordinary. If your wooden floor is starting to look a little worn perhaps all you need to do is refinish it for the floor to get a shinier look again. It's a messy project but well worth the investment.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Wide brooms
• Heavy and light sandpaper
• Gloves
• Rollers with long handle
• Floor wax or polyurethane finish
• Brushes
• Dust masks
• Wood stain
• A dozen or so rags
• Floor sanders and edger
• Shop vacuums

Sanding the Floor

1. Remove all rugs and furniture from the room.

2. Check the floor carefully for any nails (pound these down below the surface), carpet staples or tacks (pull these). Any of these could rip your sandpaper, ruining the sheet.

3. Rent a floor sander from an equipment rental shop. Traditional drum sanders do a good job but are quite heavy and take some getting used to. (It's important to keep a drum sander moving all the time. They work fast and if left standing in one spot can quickly sand a groove in the floor that would be impossible to remove.)

4. Consider a newer orbital sanders designed for floor refinishing that is easier to control. Whichever you choose, ask for a demonstration of how the sander works before you leave the rental shop.

5. Get a good supply of sandpaper (in a range of grits–—36, 60, 80, 100) that will fit your rental machine. Many rental outlets will take back sandpaper you don't use. Ask about it.

6. Clip the heaviest-grit sandpaper (36 grit) into the sander.

7. Run the sander over the floor in the direction of the wood grain. Push or pull the sander in straight, even strokes. Don't sand across the grain.

8. Remember to keep the machine in motion while it's turned on. If you gouge the floor a little while sanding, go over it again with the sander using several long strokes to even it out.

9. Remove the heavy-grit sandpaper when the whole floor is sanded, and clip a lighter-grain sandpaper (60 grit) into the sander. Sand scratches and lines in the floor as many times as necessary to remove them.

10. Use a shop vac to pick up sanding dust when you change sand paper.

11. Go over the floor again with the next lighter grain sandpaper. The key to getting beautiful smooth floors is to move up the grits sequentially from 36 to 60 to 80 to 100.

12. Repeat steps 3 through 10 with an edging machine if your floor sander doesn't reach the edge of the floor. (These can also be found at your rental center.)

Staining the Floor

13. Decide if you want to stain the floor or if you would prefer to leave the floor natural in tone, in which case you can move on to applying a finish (see "Finishing the Floor").

14. Brush the floor clear of all sawdust from the sander using a broom.

15. Use a shop vacuum or a tack rag (see How to Make a Tack Rag), to pick up even finer dust. The cleaner the floor at this stage, the better your finish will look in the end.

16. Open the windows to ventilate the area.

17. Apply some stain with a rag to a corner of the floor or the back of a closet to check that the color is the one you want. Wait 5 minutes for the stain to dry. When you're satisfied with the color, you're ready to continue.

18. Apply a first coat of stain to the rest of the floor. Use a brush if you want to apply heavier, darker coats (smooth out with a rag). If you want lighter, more controlled applications, use only rags to work in the stain. Apply with long, even strokes, going with the grain.

19. Allow the first coat to dry. If necessary, apply a second coat, or touch up light spots.

20. Make sure the floor is completely dry before you apply finish.

Finishing the Floor

21. Stir the container of polyurethane finish; shaking the mix will create air bubbles that show up in the final finish.

22. Apply polyurethane with a brush or roller, using smooth, even strokes with the grain to avoid marks in the finish.

23. Allow the finish to dry; this will take about 3 hours depending on the brand.

24. Add a second coat. Allow the final coat to dry overnight at the least, and up to 3 days before moving furniture or rugs back on the floor.

Tips & Warnings

• Waxing the floor is another finishing option, though it's not as popular these days due to the amount of upkeep. Wax should be applied in light, even coats until the desired sheen and protection level is reached. Remember to never mix polyurethane and wax finishes–—they're not compatible.
• Sanding a floor creates lots of dust. Close doors, and turn off your furnace fan (to stop dust circulating throughout the house).
• Wet bed sheets and hang them in open doorways to help minimize the spread of dust.
• Using a smaller hand sander is a lot of work and very hard on your back.
• Most finishes have harmful vapor, so make sure the work area is well-ventilated.
• Don't smoke or have open flames in the area.
• Always wear a dust mask and ensure adequate ventilation when working with sanding tools.
• Most finishes have harmful vapor, so make sure the work area is well-ventilated.
• Don't smoke or have open flames in the area.

[forafo]

on 11/17/2009 Polished Floors White paper

The process
For the best possible result floor sanding should be done after plastering the walls, before skirting boards are fitted and with no fittings or obstacles to the floor such as doors, toilets, kitchens. Floors sanders use very powerful machines and can easily scratch new kitchens or fleshly painted skirting boards. Although all care is taken an organized builder is ultimately responsible for the quality of the overall product. After floor sanding has finished and the standard 3 coats have been applied and are dry. The floor can be covered completely with a heavy material such as carpet or plastic and duct taped down all around in order to protect the floor against damage from falling debris, paint, putty and installations that will scratch or dent the floor. This initial phase is the builders obligation to provide an optimized surface for an bet...

[captainbad]

on 11/10/2009 The first thing my wife and I did when we moved into our first house a year ago was to remove the old carpet and refinish the oak floor underneath. Talk about intimidating! Luckily for us, the floor was in pretty good shape to begin with, but there were just enough problem areas to justify a full refinish.

Black spots -- We had 3 very large black spots, presumably from water or pet damage. I treated each of these spots with oxalic acid (AKA wood bleach) several times and now they have virtually disappeared.

Old finish -- We were using a Varathane ezV orbital sander (highly recommended! Easy to use. Very forgiving.) starting with 20 grit paper (I think). Within 5 minutes, the old finish had clogged up the paper so bad that it was effectively useless. First solution -- harsh chemical strippers. Not cool. Noxious fumes and if you got any on your skin, you'd develop a pretty g...

[mrsandless]

on 7/20/2009 Acetone is a stripper. There is a simple test you can do to see if you can refinish that area. Take a damp paper towel and rub the area this will show you what the floor will look like with a finish applied. If you like the look then you are ready to refinish. Follow the steps above for finishing but lightly sand first and remove dust.
Or check out mrsandless.com

[classic77]

on 7/18/2009 we had new oak hardwood floors put in February 2009, and within a few days beads of poly are constantly appearing in the cracks of the floor. This substance is sticky and if you walk on it it smears leaving unsightly marks. I'm very disappointed with the job and assume the floors will have to be resanded and polyed. The contractor told us to use mineral spirits to take up the poly beads, but that would require doing the entire floor in 3 rooms. Please advise.

[jaybird1571]

on 7/1/2009 after sanding and staining with a natural oil based stain I left it dry then finished with varathane water based floor treatment initially the floor looked great and I applied 4 coats as instructed after 24 hours light areas appeared where more sanding had been done. any thoughts on why it happened and possible solutions?