Anyone ever refinished hardwood floors?

[Molzy]

Hi all!

We bought a house last May that has gorgeous red oak hardwoods from the 1960s. We'd like to get them refinished (there are stains from carpet padding in the living room, and then they are just worn in the hallway). We are usually DIYers but we had two contractors come out for quotes. We just got the first one back, and it would be $3,000 to refinish 591 square feet.

We are now considering trying to tackle this job ourselves, but are a little hesitant only because we don't want to mess them up! I come from a family of DIYers (my dad was a handyman/contractor), but my fiancé had never really used power tools before me (but he has a desire and is a perfectionist!). Anyways, any insights from people who have done it, or from people who have decided it would be better to pay a professional, would be much appreciated!

Thanks!

[Spork]

I have.

Depending on how rough they are it is doable. If you can get by with a random orbit sander then it is pretty easy, but dusty. If it is tough enough that you need a drum sander then I will warn you the rental units are not good enough.
Start with the absolutely most aggressive paper you can find. I think I started with about 18... And that wasn't aggressive enough.

The edge sanding is a bit difficult to do well. When I was done with the edger I had to go back and do another pass with hand sanding to get the swirls out.

[CmFtns]

I just finished doing it on 1000 sqft of pine and oak. I am glad I did it myself but I absolutely underestimated the amount of work and the skill required for a perfect finish. My floor is not "perfect", so if a perfect finish is important to you then have it professionally done and by a very reputable company because I can tell you it is very hard to do this perfectly. The worst thing would be to pay someone and have it turn out badly anyway.

If you have any more specific questions I literally just finished the last coat of polyurethane 2 days ago so I might be able to help out with some "lessons learned" or whatever.

I ended up spending less than 10% of what a professional quoted price would be... you are paying for labor not materials so if you do end up doing it, it is very financially beneficial.

[partgypsy]

Try to find a friend who has done this before to be the main person and be their helper. You can definitely DIY, but if you haven't done it before, you don't really want your floor to be the one you are experimenting with, ad the sanders are powerful and if you are not in control can gouge and mess up the wood look (you don't want swirls and inconsistencies). If you are not that anal, watch a bunch of youtube videos and start the sanding in an area that will be covered up by a rug. The other rookie mistake is when you are staining or coating the wood, to not have the wood be immaculately clean. Otherwise you will have sawdust embedded in the finish.   

[Macrolide]

I did my whole house last summer using a drum sander and edger, both rented from HD, and am happy with the results. I've got mostly oak and some old fir in the bedrooms.

The drum sander was 105lbs and it didn't feel underpowered by any means. It's not too difficult to learn the technique. Watch some videos. Don't let the drum down when you are not moving. Never just drop the drum or put it down too hard - ease it down after you start moving, then lift up before you stop. Overlap passes by 1/2. Repeat the whole process at a different angle using progressively finer grit. I used 24, 60, then 100.

The 30lb edger was muuuuch more difficult to use and master IMO. Is there a way to do this without being hunched over all day??? Major back killer. My edges don't blend very well, but I still see dollar signs when I look at my floor from all the money I saved.

For the finish, I chose Waterlox tung oil for a couple reasons. It enhances the natural look of the floor without appearing plastic. I NEVER want to sand my floors again and with Waterlox you can do spot treatments on high traffic/pet accident areas or even add another coat at anytime without going down to bare wood.

[Spork]

The drum sander was 105lbs and it didn't feel underpowered by any means. It's not too difficult to learn the technique. Watch some videos. Don't let the drum down when you are not moving. Never just drop the drum or put it down too hard - ease it down after you start moving, then lift up before you stop. Overlap passes by 1/2. Repeat the whole process at a different angle using progressively finer grit. I used 24, 60, then 100.

The issue I had was that it was too light.  Yes, 100 lbs is WAY too light.  If you have a really hard wood -- especially if it is old and hardened.... you will get chatter.  After one ten passes with 18ish grit, I could see the chatter.  I punted and restarted with a random orbit sander at (whatever the lowest grit they had was).

The 30lb edger was muuuuch more difficult to use and master IMO. Is there a way to do this without being hunched over all day??? Major back killer. My edges don't blend very well, but I still see dollar signs when I look at my floor from all the money I saved.

Me too.  I had MUCH more trouble with edging than with the field.

For the finish, I chose Waterlox tung oil for a couple reasons. It enhances the natural look of the floor without appearing plastic. I NEVER want to sand my floors again and with Waterlox you can do spot treatments on high traffic/pet accident areas or even add another coat at anytime without going down to bare wood.

I went very similar.  I was looking for a bit of an "old look" finish.  I used Monocoat (also a tung oil product).  I like the finish.  I like that you can still see a grain and it doesn't look like a quarter inch of plastic on top of wood.  I will warn: I've done spot treatments and they're tricky, but doable.  It's not quite just sand a spot and coat.  And you can not add another coat without going to bare wood.  The finish is a chemical reaction.  It does not bond to itself.

[woopwoop]

I did this in my last house with twice the square footage, I definitely think you can handle that much floor on your own. It was fun to learn. One thing: if you're in a dry place, start the finishing process early in the morning so it doesn't dry too fast and have lapped edges.

If you're super worried about the edges, you can always pry off the baseboards and put them back afterwards. I didn't, but if you're planning to paint them anyway it might be worth it.

[CmFtns]

The 30lb edger was muuuuch more difficult to use and master IMO. Is there a way to do this without being hunched over all day??? Major back killer. My edges don't blend very well, but I still see dollar signs when I look at my floor from all the money I saved.

Me too.  I had MUCH more trouble with edging than with the field.

I totally agree too... The edge sander was much harder to do well. The walls where the disk was spinning against the grain still had marks when I had finished up that I found after staining one room. I went back over them with my palm sander and blended them decently well in the other rooms but the one bedroom still has 1 wall that didn't blend in well.

The drum sander was 105lbs and it didn't feel underpowered by any means. It's not too difficult to learn the technique. Watch some videos. Don't let the drum down when you are not moving. Never just drop the drum or put it down too hard - ease it down after you start moving, then lift up before you stop. Overlap passes by 1/2. Repeat the whole process at a different angle using progressively finer grit. I used 24, 60, then 100.

The issue I had was that it was too light.  Yes, 100 lbs is WAY too light.  If you have a really hard wood -- especially if it is old and hardened.... you will get chatter.  After one ten passes with 18ish grit, I could see the chatter.  I punted and restarted with a random orbit sander at (whatever the lowest grit they had was).

I had no trouble with chatter from the HD clark american 110v drum sander... the whole center of floor that was drum sanded looks perfect.

[Spork]

The drum sander was 105lbs and it didn't feel underpowered by any means. It's not too difficult to learn the technique. Watch some videos. Don't let the drum down when you are not moving. Never just drop the drum or put it down too hard - ease it down after you start moving, then lift up before you stop. Overlap passes by 1/2. Repeat the whole process at a different angle using progressively finer grit. I used 24, 60, then 100.

The issue I had was that it was too light.  Yes, 100 lbs is WAY too light.  If you have a really hard wood -- especially if it is old and hardened.... you will get chatter.  After one ten passes with 18ish grit, I could see the chatter.  I punted and restarted with a random orbit sander at (whatever the lowest grit they had was).

I had no trouble with chatter from the HD clark american 110v drum sander... the whole center of floor that was drum sanded looks perfect.

I am sure it will vary with wood hardness. Mine was hard maple and it was recycled, so it was old and super hard. I planned a little bit of it (enough to do my stairs) and that much was enough to fully dull my planner blades.

[Rubic]

I paid to have my floors refinished. After seeing how much work was involved, I'm glad I did.  I could have never made it look as good as a professional. During the week of refinishing my floors, I slept in my office and took showers in the gym.

[JaySherman5000]

I bought my house just over 2 years ago. The first thing I did was re-finish the hardwood floors on the main level (about 1000 ft^2). I did this successfully by following the advice from Pete's Hardwood Floors:

http://www.peteshardwoodfloors.com/

and by renting a drum sander and edger from HD. After spending about a month reading, watching tutorials, and soaking up every bit of knowledge I could get from the internet, I had a full understanding of what needed to be done and how to do it. The basics concepts are simple:

• Use a coarse grit sandpaper to remove ALL of the old finish from the floor and to level the boards. A drum sander will make easy work of the main field, but you'll need an edger to handle along the baseboards. You will then need a detail sander or appropriate hand tools to get into the corners, under door frames, and other hard to reach areas.
• Make a pass with a slightly finer grit sandpaper to smooth out the rough scratch marks from the first pass. Before starting, make large, sweeping pencil marks on the floor that start at the walls and project about 2 feet into the room. When those pencil marks are gone, you have sanded enough with this grit.
• Repeat step 2 with progressively finer sandpaper until you get to 80-100 grit. Pay special attention to your grit progression. This is the only way to ensure good results.
• Use a pole sander or buffer with a fine screen to blend edge marks with the drum sander marks.
• CLEAN OBSESSIVELY to get all of the dust off the floor.
• Apply stain and/or finish according to manufacturer's directions.

In my experience, the tools I rented from the home center worked just fine. Professionals have access to better tools, because they can justify the expense and see a tangible benefit to using heavy-duty equipment. If you have trouble using the drum sander offered by your local home center to remove old fiish, it's most likely because you aren't using an appropriate starting grit, you aren't changing the sandpaper frequently enough, or you need to start by cross-cutting (see the Pete's link above for more info).

I had a dining room floor that was previously re-covered with several decades worth of flooring choices. After stripping up layers of linoleum (?), we eventually got down to some nasty tar-based adhesive. I followed every piece of advice I could find to remove as much of the old adhesive as safely as possible, but eventually I had to leave it up to the drum sander to get the rest. The path to success turned out to be 16 grit sandpaper cutting across the grain of the wood at about a 10-20 degree angle. It was pretty damn awesome to see raw wood after all the hell we went through trying to remove the old adhesive. I think I used about 4 belts of sandpaper in that one room.

Waterlox was our finish of choice for the same reasons another poster stated above. That stuff is awesome.

I might come back with pictures when I have more time, but I could not be happier with our results. After computing all the costs (including paying ourselves since our time is valuable too), we did this job for about half the going rate of a professional contractor. The added benefit is that the knowledge I gained about sanding and finishing wood transferred directly when I wanted to build a dining room table, but that's another topic...

[DocMcStuffins]

Did this before and did a great job on the sanding which you can find articles on.  My problem was that I was toooooo impatient with the finish.  I put too much on the wood to try to reduce the number of times I had to do it and ended up with bubbles.  This would be my only warning is to take your time and go very light with the finish because you can always add another layer but if you use too much then it ruins all of your hard work. 

[Manguy888]

JaySherman5000 did a great job of laying out the process. My two cents is that if you're not willing to do the level of work he's describing, it's better to just pay someone to do it.

I did a few rooms in 2005 when I first bought my house and have to admit that I did a half-assed job. I just didn't have the patience to progress slowly through the grits. It looks decent but has chatter marks. There are also dark spots from old nails that a pro probably would have known how to deal with.

I'm at the point where I want the house to look a bit nicer and will probably pay to have it all redone soon.

[goosefraba1]

Did about 2,000 sq ft worth of this about 5 years ago with my dad (we actually laid all of the floors also). You have most of the work already done for you if you are only re-finishing them! As said before- move from heavy-coarse grit to fine grit. Make sure to get the floors super duper clean before you put down the finish! You don't want to waste all of your time having sanded and then ruin it with a junk finish. We swept the majority of the dust each time from sanding with a broom. Before putting down the finish, we swept more with a vacuum several times.

Good luck! Definitely worth the hassle because of the money savings.

[Manguy888]

Make sure to get the floors super duper clean before you put down the finish! You don't want to waste all of your time having sanded and then ruin it with a junk finish. We swept the majority of the dust each time from sanding with a broom. Before putting down the finish, we swept more with a vacuum several times. 

Something called Tac-clock is your friend here. It's really sticky cloth. buy a whole bunch of it and run it along the floors after sweeping, vacuuming, and letting the dust settle.

[CmFtns]

Make sure to get the floors super duper clean before you put down the finish! You don't want to waste all of your time having sanded and then ruin it with a junk finish. We swept the majority of the dust each time from sanding with a broom. Before putting down the finish, we swept more with a vacuum several times. 

Something called Tac-clock is your friend here. It's really sticky cloth. buy a whole bunch of it and run it along the floors after sweeping, vacuuming, and letting the dust settle.

For what it's worth see quote below

Tack the floor with a DRY, lint-free rag or towel. Do not use conventional 'sticky' tack rags, especially at this stage of the job when the wood is completely raw and unprotected. Those commercial tack cloths can leave a residue on the floor that could prevent your finish coat from bonding. An easy way to tack the floor when your floor us still uncoated is to wrap your towel around a push broom and walk up and down the floor with it until the towel no longer picks up any sand or dust.

[Thegoblinchief]

I redid about 250 sqft with nothing more than an orbital sander. It was more of a restoration than a refinish. We kept the original stain color but the finish was beat to hell after ages under carpet. The floor isn't perfect but it is worlds better than what it was.

We spot stained to even out the floor color and finished with 2 coats of water-based polyurethane because it had to be done very quickly (time sensitive move). Surprisingly it's held up incredibly well to nearly 10 years of punishment by 3 kids (and it's the main living space of a small house).

[Molzy]

Thanks everyone!! I think you've given us the boost we needed to try and diy this. And my dad, who has done this before, has offered to come supervise and help out (he can't ohysically do it anymore, but it'll help to have his advice).

We are going to postpone for warmer weather, so that we can open windows. It'll probably end up being fall before we get to it with our other to do lists and our wedding.

I've attached some photos to show the staining that will require the full sand.

[CmFtns]

Thanks everyone!! I think you've given us the boost we needed to try and diy this. And my dad, who has done this before, has offered to come supervise and help out (he can't physically do it anymore, but it'll help to have his advice).

We are going to postpone for warmer weather, so that we can open windows. It'll probably end up being fall before we get to it with our other to do lists and our wedding.

I've attached some photos to show the staining that will require the full sand.

nice update and pics, I don't recall you mentioning it before... how many sqft are you doing? and are there tight spaces or hallways?

[Molzy]

It's about 600 square feet, but only the living room has the staining. The hallway is tight, and the others are three bedrooms (10x10) and three closets (where we plan to practice with the hand sander!).

[Spork]

It's about 600 square feet, but only the living room has the staining. The hallway is tight, and the others are three bedrooms (10x10) and three closets (where we plan to practice with the hand sander!).

While this is a good idea to practice where it doesn't show much... don't let it discourage you.  It is MUCH harder to use that thing in a tight space than along a real edge.  It's still a damned art along the edge.  But I found closets to be really hard.

[CmFtns]

It's about 600 square feet, but only the living room has the staining. The hallway is tight, and the others are three bedrooms (10x10) and three closets (where we plan to practice with the hand sander!).

While this is a good idea to practice where it doesn't show much... don't let it discourage you.  It is MUCH harder to use that thing in a tight space than along a real edge.  It's still a damned art along the edge.  But I found closets to be really hard.

In my house I decided to ignore the closets and carpet over them with a transition strip right under the closet door, but the hallway was a huge pain...

[J Boogie]

I bought my house just over 2 years ago. The first thing I did was re-finish the hardwood floors on the main level (about 1000 ft^2). I did this successfully by following the advice from Pete's Hardwood Floors:

http://www.peteshardwoodfloors.com/

and by renting a drum sander and edger from HD. After spending about a month reading, watching tutorials, and soaking up every bit of knowledge I could get from the internet, I had a full understanding of what needed to be done and how to do it. The basics concepts are simple:

• Use a coarse grit sandpaper to remove ALL of the old finish from the floor and to level the boards. A drum sander will make easy work of the main field, but you'll need an edger to handle along the baseboards. You will then need a detail sander or appropriate hand tools to get into the corners, under door frames, and other hard to reach areas.
• Make a pass with a slightly finer grit sandpaper to smooth out the rough scratch marks from the first pass. Before starting, make large, sweeping pencil marks on the floor that start at the walls and project about 2 feet into the room. When those pencil marks are gone, you have sanded enough with this grit.
• Repeat step 2 with progressively finer sandpaper until you get to 80-100 grit. Pay special attention to your grit progression. This is the only way to ensure good results.
• Use a pole sander or buffer with a fine screen to blend edge marks with the drum sander marks.
• CLEAN OBSESSIVELY to get all of the dust off the floor.
• Apply stain and/or finish according to manufacturer's directions.

In my experience, the tools I rented from the home center worked just fine. Professionals have access to better tools, because they can justify the expense and see a tangible benefit to using heavy-duty equipment. If you have trouble using the drum sander offered by your local home center to remove old fiish, it's most likely because you aren't using an appropriate starting grit, you aren't changing the sandpaper frequently enough, or you need to start by cross-cutting (see the Pete's link above for more info).

I had a dining room floor that was previously re-covered with several decades worth of flooring choices. After stripping up layers of linoleum (?), we eventually got down to some nasty tar-based adhesive. I followed every piece of advice I could find to remove as much of the old adhesive as safely as possible, but eventually I had to leave it up to the drum sander to get the rest. The path to success turned out to be 16 grit sandpaper cutting across the grain of the wood at about a 10-20 degree angle. It was pretty damn awesome to see raw wood after all the hell we went through trying to remove the old adhesive. I think I used about 4 belts of sandpaper in that one room.

Waterlox was our finish of choice for the same reasons another poster stated above. That stuff is awesome.

I might come back with pictures when I have more time, but I could not be happier with our results. After computing all the costs (including paying ourselves since our time is valuable too), we did this job for about half the going rate of a professional contractor. The added benefit is that the knowledge I gained about sanding and finishing wood transferred directly when I wanted to build a dining room table, but that's another topic...

I was just at Pete's Hardwood Floors this past weekend (and the weekend before that, and the one before that...).

Great people, very friendly and they help you get up to speed with the equipment.

I spent about $600 on rental equipment and abrasives to refinish 7 rooms, one of them being a kitchen that was covered in sticky black cutback/mastic.  I'll likely spend another $3-400 on Osmo, which is a hardwax oil.

Someone mentioned waterlox earlier and another said it was like Rubio Monocoat - they are 2 different types of finish.

There are 3 basic types, Oil based, Water based, and Hardwax Oil.

Oil based finishes penetrate but don't have as strong of a surface film protection like Water based, and they smell bad, take a while to cure, and yellow over time.

Water based finishes don't penetrate, don't smell as bad, don't take long to cure, and don't yellow over time.

Hardwax oil (monocoat, osmo, a couple others) finishes combine the best of oil and water.  Penetration + surface film protection, doesn't yellow, doesn't smell too bad, doesn't need more than a couple coats and doesn't take too long to cure.  However Monocoat isn't good for floors that have significant gaps (mine do) so I'm using Osmo.

I'm a woodworker so I felt comfortable with the whole process but have to admit it's a whole different ballgame.  I never use grit below 80 and I hate using that big edger.  I only edged up to 50, I'll edge 80 grit with my orbital sander on my knee pads.  You can't really kneel with those edgers, your back just has to bend over and take it apparently.  Then I'll screen 100 grit before I clean and apply finish.

[Manguy888]

I never use grit below 80 and I hate using that big edger.

Before I did my floors, I had this horrible image in my head of keeping the sander in one place too long and sanding a hole through the floor with that low grit paper.