How to Refinish Hardwood Floors

If your hardwood protective finish has worn off, it's the perfect time to refinish it. Applying a modern new finish, will give it a classy look (removing the dullness that has come with prolonged use) and the hardwood floor will be easy to maintain with their life extended. The maintenance that is required depends on the amount of use it sees, for example, low-use areas like living rooms or offices may need only vacuuming and seldom damp mopping with a hardwood cleaner whereas, high-traffic areas, such as kitchen may need a regular re-coating, sanding and refinishing.

The job takes a couple of days to be completed and if you periodically re-coat the floor every 3 or 4 years, you may never require a complete refinishing. Anyone who has had an experience in flooring knows how messy it can get - starting from removing the previous finish to sanding, staining and putting up a new finish. It's always better to leave such a job to professionals until and unless, you have had an earlier experience.

How to Refinish a Hardwood Floor

Tips on Sanding the Floor

1. All furniture and rugs from the room should be removed.
2. Do a careful check for any left behind nails, carpet staples, etc., because these can rip your sandpaper.
3. Get a floor sander from the market or a better idea is to rent it from an equipment renting shop. Traditional drum sanders are heavy and should be cautiously used. If left standing at a place, they quickly sand a grove in the floor that is almost impossible to remove.
4. Ask for a good supply of sandpaper, in range of grits - 36, 60, 80, 100.
5. Heaviest-grit-sandpaper (36 grit) should be clipped to the sander first.
6. Run the sander over the floor in direction of the wood grain.
7. When the floor is sanded, remove the heavy grit and clip a lighter (60 grit).
8. When changing sandpaper, use a shop vac to pick up sanding dust.
9. Again, change to lighter grain sandpaper. If you need a beautiful smooth floor, go from 36 to 60 to 80 to 100.
10. Repeat the above steps with the edging machine, if the floor sander doesn't reach the edges of the floor.

Staining the Floor

1. You can either stain the floor or leave it in natural tone. In case you decide to leave it, see, tips on finishing the floor.
2. Clear the floor of all the sawdust from the sander.
3. Use a vacuum to suck out finer dust. Cleaner the surface the better will be the finish.
4. Ensure that the room has proper ventilation system, if not, open up the windows.
5. Apply stain with a rag to a corner of the floor to check if the color is the one you wanted. Wait for the stain to dry.
6. Coat the rest of the floor with stain.
7. Make sure that the coat is completely dry before you start the finishing.

Tips on Finishing the Floor

1. Stir the container containing polyurethane finish. Remember that shaking the mixture will create bubbles in final finish.
2. Put polyurethane with the help of a brush or roller, with smooth even strokes to avoid marks.
3. Let the finish, dry. It may take up to 3 hours to dry.
4. Put on the second coat and let it dry for at least 3 days before getting back the furniture in the room.

The above mentioned steps are sure to guide you to an elegant hardwood refinishing. You may want to know that waxing the floor is also an option, though it's not popular these days. Wax should be applied only in light and it shouldn't be mixed with polyurethane.