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Have you been thinking about refinishing hardwood floors in your home? Have those glowing floors you fell in love with back when you bought your house turned dull in certain spots—or all over? Does walking barefoot on your floors no longer feel like traipsing on a moonbeam?
Don’t fret! Scars, scratches, and discolored patches are a normal part of life with hardwood floors. You don’t need to move to whole new house to get the “first year of home ownership” magic back; that average wear and tear can be addressed via tried-and-true floor refinishing techniques. From the sanding to picking the right polyurethane finish, we’ll go over what you, as a homeowner, need to know about refinishing hardwood floors.
Discoloration and visible imperfections like scars and scratches will let you know it’s probably time to refinish your hardwood floors.
You’ll likely be able to tell when it’s time to refinish your floors just by looking at them, whether it’s just a patch of discoloration or a whole room in which the entire floor has faded to gray.
“[It’s time to refinish your hardwood floors] when the color isn’t what you want,” says designer Tamara Day, host of Magnolia Network’s Bargain Mansions. “When you can see wear and tear going though the top finish and creating pathways, it’s time.”
If you’re still not sure, you can turn to the water drop test: Place a couple drops of water on the wood floor and see what happens. If the droplets bead on the floor, you can probably wait a bit on refinishing hardwood floors in that room and make do by polishing them instead. But if the water droplet soaks into the wood right away, it’s time to refinish the wood floors.
Keep in mind that this hardwood floor refinishing is not a weekend afternoon DIY project. Depending on the size of your home, it could take several days before you’re done. A floor-refinishing project is a time-consuming effort that will require a decent amount of labor and patience, and you will likely need to spend money renting equipment from a home improvement store. Once you’re done, though, you’ll get to look at your refinished floors with an extra sense of pride.
That said, there’s no shame in hiring professionals to do it for you—although that, naturally, will cost you even more. “Don’t do it yourself—hire someone!” Day suggests to those who are more time-strapped.
There are many stages to refinishing hardwood floors, and you’re going to need different tools and materials for each of them:
Before you start rearranging the furniture in your room, make sure you have everything you’ll need. That includes calling the the home improvement store where you plan on getting your rented equipment and making sure they’ll have the drum sander, edge sander, or orbital sander. There’s nothing more annoying than clearing and prepping a whole room and then being unable to do anything with it for a week because you forgot to reserve the sanders from Home Depot.
Once that’s settled, clear out the room you’ll be working in. Move everything on the floor, including carpets and rugs, out of the way. Carefully, using a pry bar, pull out the baseboards and store them safely elsewhere. (It may help to label them with painter’s tape so you know precisely where they go back when you’re done.)
You’re going to want to seal openings against the wood particles that will be getting everywhere during the sanding stages. Use painter’s tape to cover up electrical outlets and vents. Tape plastic sheeting over interior doors to other rooms.
Now it’s time to focus on prepping the floor. Hammer down or replace protruding nails. You should be able to scrape (lightly!) a putty knife along the floorboards without it snagging on nails.
If there are gouges, deep scratches or other kinds of damage in the floor, this is the time to patch them up. Use wood filler to fill up holes and scars and make sure you leave enough time for the wood filler to dry completely before sanding.
The entire floor should be clear, clean, and free of protrusions before you move onto the next step.
Sanding is a time-consuming part of refinishing hardwood floors, but it’s also the most important step. You’ll have to do it in stages, from rough sanding to fine sanding, in order to get the most out of your DIY project.
Make sure you wear a respirator and eye protection before you start sanding. The first floor sander you should use is the drum sander (or belt sander, if you prefer). Starting with the coarsest sandpaper you have (36-grit or 40-grit), make three-to-four-foot strokes along the floor, going with the wood grain. Do overlapping passes from one end of the room to the other. The main goal of the rough sanding is to sand out all but the deepest scratches in the solid hardwood.
Do not keep the sander running in one place! You could create a permanent mark in the floor. And don’t worry about getting the edges and corners perfect—that’s what the edge sander is for.
Continue to sand the entire floor this way until it has all been sanded. (You’ll get about 200 to 250 square feet of sanding with each belt of sandpaper, or about 20 square feet for each sheet of sandpaper, if you’re using those instead.)
Now it’s time for the edge or orbital sander. Using 40-grit sandpaper, sand the floors all the way to the edges and corners of the room.
You’ll know you’re on the right track with your sanding when the whole floor starts to look the same color all over.
Once you’re done with the 40-grit sandpaper, sand the floor the same way with the 60-grit sandpaper—first with the drum sander and then the edge sander. After you’re done with the 60-grit, repeat the process with the 80-grit sandpaper. Repeat again with steadily increasing grits.
Finish with the 120-grit sandpaper to complete the sanding stage and achieve that new-floor smoothness that you want. Don’t skip the intermediate grits of sandpaper, or you won’t get that new-floor look and feel!
A floor buffer or sand-screener is what you use for the final pass to eliminate any remaining minor unevenness from your floor. You can use a rented industrial buffer or just do it manually with a push pole buffer.
Whichever you use, fit the tool with 120-grit sandpaper and push it in smooth, broad strokes along the wood grain across the entire floor.
It’s time to clean again, which is critical before applying the sealer. If you apply your sealer on top of a fallen hair, you may be looking at the hair suspended on your floor for as long as the house is still standing!
So vacuum, clean, and run a tack cloth along the entire floor to pick up any and all stray hairs or dust. You might even consider cleaning your walls as well, to make sure nothing falls from them onto your floor during the next two steps.
Staining your hardwood floors is an optional step in the refinishing process.
It’s entirely optional for hardwood floor finishing, but now’s the time to stain the wood, if you want. Apply your stain in thin, even coats along the wood grain with a foam applicator pad. Remove any excess stain and let the wood dry completely.
If necessary, apply a second coat of wood stain.
Remember to start at the far end of the room and work your way to the doorway so you don’t trap yourself in!
Now you need to apply a sealer to the wood to protect all your hard work.
Most homeowners in the US apply either a water-based polyurethane finish or an oil-based polyurethane finish. Water-based finishes provide good protection against scuffs and water damage but require more coats and can be tricky to apply because they dry so quickly. Oil-based finishes give you a smoother finish, but take longer to dry and tend to have VOCs (volatile organic compounds) and can yellow with time. Either way, you should always make sure the room is well-ventilated and wear respirators for this stage.
Whichever wood finish you choose, apply it in even strokes across the floor using a lambswool applicator roller, avoiding pooling and dripping. Use a paintbrush as needed to finish edges. Start, again, at the far corner of the room and work your way out of the room so you don’t trap yourself.
Day recommends applying as many coats as is reasonable, since each coat adds another layer of protection for your floors. High-traffic floors need the most coats.
“More is more, in my opinion!” she says. “If you are deciding between two or three coats, do three! The finish can change depending on how much traffic it’s getting. Think about the entryway, the kitchen, and which spaces you find yourself walking on the most.”
Between your first coat and second coat and the second coat (or third) and top coat, give the sealer enough time to dry completely. It will vary by manufacturer, but expect to wait 24 to 48 hours per coat, for most brands.
Once the drying time is up for each coat, lightly sand or buff the entire floor (yet again) to eliminate imperfections. Vacuum and clean the floor before starting on the next coat. Do the same after each additional coat of wood finish.
Wait until the final coat is completely finished drying before you start walking on the floor again. You can now put baseboards back on and uncover the vents and doors.
You may want to wait an additional two days to a week, or more (checking the manufacturer’s instructions), though, before you replace the rugs and furniture—and you may want to apply felt pads to the feet of your furniture pieces before you lift them back in.
Be careful not to drag your furniture back into place after the refinishing process. Consider using felt tips as an extra layer of protection between the feet of your furniture and your newly refinished floors.
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