Let's talk hardwood floors this morning. One of the most common questions readers ask is about refinishing floors. We rented an industrial sander, sanded down all of the floors, stained, and clear-coated the floors ourselves. No matter what products you use, I don't think it's an easy job, but it
is do-able. We started by cleaning all of the floors with an industrial cleaning product called
Mex All-Purpose Cleaner. We mixed it with very hot water at maximum strength, mopped it on, let it sit for a few minutes, mopped again, and then used a putty knife to scrape off the old varnish, paper, and glue. Mex removed the varnish, so make sure you throw away the mop head once you're done.
We used three different types of sandpaper, starting with the roughest grit first and working our way to the smoothest. When you rent the sander, they give you a supply of sandpaper and you only pay for what you use. It cost approximately $500 to refinish the hardwood floors on the entire 1st floor, which (I'm guessing) is about 1000 square feet.
The tricky thing with our floors was that each room on the first floor is a different type (color) of wood, but we wanted them all to look the same. My dad taught us this trick to determine what stain to go with: after sanding down all of the floors, rub a damp cloth on the floor in each room. The wet spot mimics what the floor will look like when it's polyurethaned, so you should choose a stain that matches the darkest wet spot. If you look at the image above, the floor on the right is coated in clear polyurethane (and nothing else)- the floor on the left was stained
and polyurethaned to match. This is what our kitchen floors looked like when we started...
Below is an image of the dining room after the floors had been sanded. You can kind of see how the floors are two different colors. We put the tape down to remind ourselves where not to apply stain...
This image is after the floors were stained, but before being polyurethaned. Polyurethane has an extraordinarily strong odor and, having little kids, I'm not sure we'd go with it a second time. Besides waxing, which I've heard is really labor intensive, I'm not really sure what other durable options are out there, though. If you do go with polyurethane, make sure you can open all of the windows, use fans, and allow it to dry completely (follow product directions). We moved furniture too soon, so now we have a few divots that we need to touch up (not a huge deal)...
Here's a shot of the living room floors before...
and after...
another shot of the kitchen before (well, during)...
and after...
I know I've said it before, but you're all lucky that you can't smell the before photos. Blech! The stench was pretty unbearable. The previous owners had dogs and the house had been abandoned for a while, so there were some animal stain issues. We were able to sand out some of the really bad spots, but not others. The smell came out, which was what we were really shooting for. The floors aren't perfect, but this is an 1800's farmhouse- they don't have to be perfect. Let me know if there's something I missed or if you have any questions. This is the first time we've refinished floors, so I'll try to answer them as best I can. And if anyone knows of a durable alternative to polyurethane, please leave your suggestions in the comments.
