Managing Home Maintenance Costs

This hardwood floor needed to be refinished in a really bad way. There was nothing wrong with the wood. However the surface was scuffed up. The finish was coming off or has worn off. There are marks on the floor from either furniture or possibly rugs that were placed on the floor to cover the not so good looking floor. This floor was refinished and made to look almost like new. So it is well worth taking the time to refinish it. Instead of covering it with a wall to wall rug. Some consumers will do this to avoid the work. They may also prefer rugs to hardwood floors as well which is fine. Everyone is entitled to their own personal taste.

Refinish Hardwood Floor

We happen to like hardwood flooring for a number of reasons. First of all they look great, but they also keep the dust down. They do not hide the dust the way a carpet does. Anyone with allergies will always do better with a hardwood floor vs. a wall to wall carpet.

How to Refinish a Hardwood Floor

If you plan to refinish the floor yourself, it is important that you do it properly. Renting a power sander is probably the easiest way. Provided that you rent the correct one. Also when you are sanding, you make sure that you sand with the grain and NOT across the grain. Sanding across the grain will leave scratches in the wood. Which will really spoil the look and the finish of the floor.

Sand the wood with the grain until you have removed all of the existing finish leaving clean non stained wood. If there are gauges in the floor, you may have to hand sand these to avoid removing too much of the actual wood. There are techniques for repair gauges, however we will not be covering this technique in this post.

Once the floor is sanded to your satisfaction, it is clean up time. Basically you need to sweep up all of the dust and then use a tack cloth to get the remaining particles on the floor as well as the walls, windows and ceilings. Your sander may have had an exhaust blower to blow the dust out the window or into a bag to capture it. This is a great feature, however there will still be fine particles of dust everywhere so get out the tack cloth and get every single particle of dust. This will avoid dust leaving marks on the floor when you apply the stain or the finish.

Staining your Hardwood Floor and Finishing Your Floor

If you are applying a stain to the floor to change the natural color of the wood, now is the time to do this. Make sure you have lots of ventilation so that you can breathe and do not harm your lungs. Start in a corner and work your way to the door to avoid locking yourself into a corner with no escape.

Allow the stain to dry according to the manufacturer’s directions. Then apply the finish coat that will protect the floor for many years. This is usually a verathane of some kind. Which will have a high luster to it and bring out the grain in your floor.

Many consumers will hire a company to refinish their floors. The major advantage is that the work is completed quickly and efficiently. In a matter of days your floor is as good as new and you can move your furniture into the room. When you do the work yourself, you definitely save a lot of money, however with work and family commitments, refinishing your hardwood floor can take several weeks.

This is a really basic decision of cost vs. time vs. work and each consumer will need to make their own decision regarding just how much work they want to do vs. putting up with disruption in your home for several weeks.