How to Refinish Hardwood Floors – Home Remodeling Tacoma WA

Don’t panic if you believe that refinishing hardwood floors since they have seen better days. You may complete this task at home with some knowledge and hard work. If DIYing isn’t your thing, understanding the steps necessary to revive your hardwood floors will help you choose whether to refinish hardwood floors or replace hardwood floors and give you an idea of what to anticipate along the journey. From deciding if hardwood floor refinishing is the right choice for you to making the final layer of the finishing product, this guide will take you through each step of the procedure.

But be warned that intense scratches, gouges, and stains cannot be anticipated to be removed by sanding. Even experts urge homeowners to have realistic expectations about what can be achieved with floor sanding. Floor sanding can only remove a maximum of 1/16 inch of wood, and deeper damage will often still be visible but will be less conspicuous.

How Much Would It Cost You to Refinish Hardwood Floors Yourself?

Expect to spend somewhat less than $500 per 275 square feet if you decide to DIY your hardwood flooring. The typical range is between $1,000 and $2,400.

Sanding equipment rental and purchases of high-quality brushes, sanding pads, wood stain, and finish are all included in the price.

Is Your Hardwood Floor Truly Made of Solid Hardwood, or Is It Fake? – Remodeling Contractor Tacoma Wa

Identifying your floor’s kind is the first step in properly refinishing wood floors. Although it might appear straightforward, there are several types of wood floors that look like hardwood floors but are really composed totally or mostly of other materials. Each of these types requires a distinct refinishing hardwood floors method.

The earliest imitation of hardwood is laminate. Lumber plank in order to replicate the texture and appearance of bare wood, hardwood flooring is built of layers of synthetic materials that are embossed with a grain pattern. Laminate flooring often feels like hard plastic, making it rather simple to identify if it is composed of that material. Laminate cannot be refinished, which is unfortunate, but there are various recoating techniques that use chemical abrasives.

Another option for solid hardwood flooring is engineered wood, which consists of a thin layer (or veneer) adhered to a layer of less expensive material, usually plywood. Refinishing this flooring once or twice is completely feasible, but you must make sure the layer of real hardwood is thick enough to prevent plywood while sanding.

What Are The Steps In Refinishing Hardwood Floors?

Follow these 6 steps to refinish hardwood floors in your home:

Utilize a Hardwood Floor Cleaner to Clean the Floors – Home Improvement Tacoma

Before cleaning the wood floors, remove all of the furniture from the room. Making your own cleaning solution is also possible by combining 10 parts of water and 1 part of white vinegar.

Use a terry cloth mop or a towel wrapped around a mop head to gently clean the entire floor.

To prevent dust within the house you’re sanding, close the open windows and doors.

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Prep Work the Border – Remodeling Tacoma

Hand-sand the room’s perimeter and any crevices that the buffer can’t access with 180-grit sandpaper.

Working over each board, rub against the grain 4 to 6 inches away from the baseboard until the refinishing hardwood floors become dull and a powder develops.

Sanding the Floor Finish Rough – Tacoma Home Remodeling

Put on a dust mask and fasten the buffer’s maroon buffing pad.

Overlap each course of the buffer by six inches as you move it from side to side across the floor in the direction of the grain.

As you work, the old finish dissolves to powder, making it simple to identify the areas you’ve already covered.

Keep the buffer running continuously, but vacuum the pad about every five minutes.

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Clean and Tack Cloth – Home Remodeling Tacoma WA

Leave the room for 10 to 15 minutes to allow the powder to settle.

Before using the vacuum to sweep the floor, clean the wood filler using a felt-bottomed attachment.

After working in line with the flooring strips, sweep through them to get rid of any powder that gathered between the boards.

Finally, dry-tack the floor by rubbing a microfiber cloth against the grain.

Along the Edges, Cut in – Remodeling Tacoma WA

Cover your mouth and nose with a respirator that includes organic vapor canisters, and your shoes with booties.

Pour part of the finished product into a tiny plastic container after straining it through a cone filter into a fresh, plastic sheeting can without a sprinkler head.

The area furthest from your exit door should have a 3-square-foot stripe painted beside the baseboards.

If the edge of the stripe begins to dry after 10 minutes, stop and go on to the next stage to avoid getting lap marks.

Spread the Polyurethane

Only as much finish as you can apply in 10 minutes should be applied in a stripe 1 inch wide and perpendicular to the grain.

With the aid of a long-handled roller with a 14-inch nap cover, the refinishing procedure has to be applied first against the grain and then across.

Work swiftly and overlap each pass to maintain a moist edge.

After 10 minutes, roll and pour again for 10 minutes before applying an additional finish around the edge. Continue until the floor is covered.

How to Determine Whether Your Hardwood Floor Can Resurfaced – Tacoma Kitchen Remodeling

Given that a normal solid hardwood floor may often be refinished four or five times before needing to be replaced, you may not need to measure the remaining thickness of your floor if you are aware of its previous refinishing.

Engineered hardwood floors can be a little trickier because less expensive models can have a thin veneer that won’t even hold up to one round of refinishing. However, you might be able to determine the original thickness of the wood floor if you have a receipt, box, or model number.

They can normally be resurfaced up to two times if they originally had 1/8″ of veneer, and three or even four times if they originally had 3/16″ before replacement becomes the preferable course of action. Due to their thinner wear layers, machine- or hand-scraping, the finish is not advised when refinish hardwood floors.

Helpful Tips Refinishing Hardwood Floors

Make Your Sanding Equipment Do It Yourselfer

The best choice for DIY refinishing hardwood floors is a random orbital sander. They take longer than drum sanders to remove the previous refinished floor, but they are easier to operate and less likely to harm your hardwood floor refinishing. You may work either with the wood grain or against it while using a random orbital sandpaper.

Prior to sanding dust and refinishing the wood floor, make sure to prepare your house as follows:

Make the area clear: Rugs, chairs, and other things should be removed from the hardwood flooring area you will be working on.

Clean the sanding floor completely:

Before applying the new finish, the whole floor must be free of dust and dirt.

Before refinishing your hardwood floors, fix any loose planks with finishing nails.

One of the most important tasks in refinishing hardwood floors is sanding them, which leaves the whole surface scratches of the floor stained-free.

When Working on the Floor and Carrying Heavy Objects, Exercise Caution – Kitchen Remodel Tacoma WA

You must take steps to prevent back injury while transferring sanders from the rental store to your home (or upstairs), and you should always have a helper. When feasible, move the machine using ramps.

Get assistance moving large pieces of furniture out of the room as well. (You must empty it entirely before you start.) Throughout the job, you must also maintain appropriate form whether sanding while hunched over, applying varnish, or cleaning up.

As you can see, refinishing hardwood floors can be time- and labor-consuming, but the procedures are frequently simple. By refinishing hardwood floors yourself, you may alter space and save some money with a long weekend, the appropriate planning, and some hard work. Send us a message and let Remodeling Pros NW do it for you if you’re interested in refinishing or recoating the hardwood floors in your house but find the notion of handling it all on your own to be too much to bear:

Phone: (206) 617 6607

Email: info@remodelingprosnw.com

Website: https://remodelingprosnw.com/