Has your hardwood floor lost its shine?
So you’ve had your hardwood floor for a couple of decades, and you begin to realize that raising children was definitely rough on your floor. Between scratches, gouges, and stains, it no longer looks like the beautiful floor you once owned. If yours is a hardwood or solid wood floor, not laminate, then you should be able to refinish it and restore most if not all of the original luster.
Things to check before refinishing your hardwood floor
Before you begin your refinishing project, you should make sure that there is still sufficient thickness for the floor to be refinished. Each time a floor is refinished you are actually taking a “layer” of the floor off, so unless you know that this is the first time it will be refinished, you will need to make sure that there is enough floor left to refinish without destroying your floor.
Once you are certain that you want to refinish, there are several steps to complete the project. The materials you will need are -
- a drum or belt sander
- an edger
- a buffer
- sandpaper for each sander in 40, 60, 80, and 100 grits
- dust masks
- sealer
- finish
- brushes etc for application.
The first step in the process is the preparing your floor.
Remove everything from the room that is not nailed down. If you are going to remove the baseboards use a shim to protect the wall and exercise extreme caution. You should be prepared to replace some of them as they can very easily break. Carefully go over the entire floor and make sure any nails are flush to avoid damage to sanders. Now you are ready to begin the sanding process.
To be continued.