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Refinishing A Hardwood Floor
By Lee Dobbins, Fri Dec 9th
Want to bring your hardwood floors back to their former beauty,but don’t have the money? Then read on for some tips on how youcan refinish the floor yourself. If you have the time and don’t mind doing the work, thenrefinishing your floors yourself is a great option but beforestarting out, it’s not a bad idea to get an estimate from aprofessional so you can compare the cost of doing it yourself towhat they would charge. You’ll get quite a shock at the amountthat is charged. It may cost over $1000 to have just 1 roomdone. You could carpet over it for less, but doesn’t carpetingover beautiful hardwood floors seem, well, wrong? It is actually rather easy to refinish a wood floor – if you payattention to what you are doing. To sand the floor, you need adrum sander and possibly a belt sander which can be rented atyour neighborhood Home Depot or hardware store. They can helpyou figure out which machines you need to rent, what kind ofsand paper you should buy and also can help with the type andamount of stain and finish for the floor. You might also want toget some dust masks and plastic to section the room off from therest of the house. Fine particles of dust will get everywhere –even if you section off the room, but you may be able tominimize the impact on the rest of the house. The most important part of refinishing your floors is learninghow to control the sander. The key to running the sander is tomake sure it keeps moving at all times, otherwise they aresimple to use, although a bit hard on the ears. If you stop in 1spot, you will probably get a big gouge in your floor. Equate itto using an iron on your clothes – if you stop in 1 spot toolong you’ll burn a hole. The sander is similar since it createsa lot of heat, keeping it in 1 spot can burn or dent your floor. You do need to be careful with the sander as it is selfpropelled.
When you first start it up, make sure you hold onfirmly. Don’t be afraid of the machine but make sure youmaintain complete control. Relax, after a few spins, it may evenstart to seem like fun.After the old finish is removed, you need to apply the stain andnew finish. Think of this as the same as doing your nails –first you remove the old finish, then basecoat, color andtopcoat. Sometimes you don’t want color on your nails so youskip that part. In your floor you might also skip that part (thestain) but you still want to use a finish to protect the floor. When selecting a finish you can pick from an oil based orpolyurethane (water based) finish. When selecting an oil basedfinish you will need to decide if you want a satin, gloss orsemi gloss finish. It’s probably best for you to use satin on ahardwood floor as it will help hide any flaws in the wood and ismuch more pleasing then a bright shine Using oil based finish isbetter for wood floors as it casts a warm amber glow. Waterbased, on the other had dries quicker and resists yellowing. No matter which you choose, you must let each coat dry beforeputting down the next coat. Think back to the nail polishanalogy! Follow the manufacturers instructions on the finishbefore you occupy the room again. Usually you can move yourfurniture back in after about 24 hours. As you can see, the task of refinishing your floors need not beoverwhelming. Think of it as giving your room a manicure. Takeit one step at a time and use care in the process and you canhave a great looking floor and save yourself almost $1000 toboot!
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