we went to home depot and learned about refinishing the floors. got some putty to fill in the cracks.
rented a sander.
wood stripped.
ill post pics of the finished stained later.
#1
wow i had know idea we had this forum.
when we bought our house, it had carpet with hardwood floors underneth. we pulled up a couple corners of the carpet and all looked good. we planned all along to have hard wood floors. the carpet was in horrible shape anyway.
we started pulling up the carpet and we got kind of upset.
seems before they put the house on the market they brought in some pro carpet cleaners (this is our best guess) and they used way to much shampoo or something. it was very oily and had been socking on the wood for more than a month!
it looked horrible
.
#2
we went to home depot and learned about refinishing the floors. got some putty to fill in the cracks.
rented a sander.
wood stripped.
ill post pics of the finished stained later.
#3
HEY!! NOT FAIR!! I went through all those pics slowly so I wouldn't get to the 'After' pics before they finished loading, and I get through all the 'Yikes' & 'Ouch'es, and get to the bottom AND THERE IS NO PAYOFF!!!Get those finished pics up soon- The suspense is killing me
#4
Nice job there.I did the entire ground floor in my place in Gwynn Oak two years ago. Took a friend and I 6 days to sand everything down, and then another 5 days to put the finish on.
What product did you use to varnish?
#5
golden oak 210b. the 3 layers of polypropolene (sp?). it took me a day to do the sanding, a day to do the stain, and like 2 or 3 days to do the poly stuff, it was raining like crazy so the moisture in the air made it very difficult to dry.
#6
hey, its starting to look like people live in this house.
#7
Very nice and good job.
The way it was meant to be.
Now I'm jealous.
#8
Gotta love hardwood floors. Awesome job.
#9
wow looks great nice work
#10
Looks great & you are very lucky. I helped a friend pull back the green shag carpet in his place, and when we started it looked nice hardwood underneath. It wasn't until we got about half the carpet up that we discover the spots where the hardwood was missing & replaced with plywood.
He ended up getting new hardwood floors installed, but his wife was not impressed with us that night.
#11
Beautiful floors! Great job - how long did it take from start to finish?
#12
thanksid say about 5 days.
i got some super fast drying polyproplene (sp?) and i could have had it done in 2 and half days if the weather was better, but it kept raining, and it took a whole 24 hours for one coat of the poly to dry (i did two). and then you have the 24 hours before you can have light traffic on it, then 48 for furniture, then 72 for area rugs. my gf and i where ready to kill each other with the entertainment center in the kitchen and everything else in the sun room. we had to go out the front door and walk around to the back door to get to the kitchen from upstairs. so it was a lot of fun
. oh yeah, we had a ton of stuff in the basement, and since it was raining so much it starting leacking, and then we had to carry all our crap outside around the house and up the stairs to the attic without stepping on the floors
.
the joys of home ownership
#13
You think the floors looked bad when you peeled the carpet up???? Bwhahahaha you should have seen the shock on our face. Before we bought the house we peeled up a corner (with permission) and it looked great. In retrospect, of course the corners look great....no one walks or spills in the corners.I peeled back all the carpet and the previous owner used 3 inch wood screws in huge circles to try and stop floor squeeks.....as if that was the way to fix it.
I have refinished wood floors several times in the past but didnt have the time for it due to work so we hired a guy. He had to replace 400 sq.ft. of boards damaged by screws and stains and we also had him replace the front powder room vinyl wioth hardwoods. When it was all said and done we had 2,000 sq.ft. on the main of gleaming new hardwoods.
#16
Looks greatI've been wondering about this myself. I didn't know how much of a project it would be.
How was the dust level with the sander? Did it get right up to the trim? I'd probably pull that off too.
How do you replace damaged boards? I have a section where one of the previous owners widened up a closed door, and left plywood there.
Dave.
#17
the sander gets pretty close to the wall, if you put quarter molding down you won't be able to tell that you didn't get right up to 1/8 of an inch. the dust level was minimal, there is like a cloth apron that went on the bottom covering up the orbital pads, and it sucked the dust up like a vaccum. i had to empty the bag twice. before coats of stain and poly and had to wipe the floors up with tac cloth to put up dust, but dust wasn't flying around the house or anything
#18
I just saw your pictures. You will be so happy with you're hardwoods. I love wood floors and it kills me when people cover beautiful floors with carpet.I had someone refinish my floors (natural, satin finish), because I had done it before and it was the messiest thing I've attempted. It was more headache than it was worth. Props to you for tackleing it!
#19
years ago we found hardwood floors under our ghetto shag like carpeting and decided to refinish them ourselves also. my folks just hired me for the summer to hand sand them and urathane them. it looks ok, but it really pays to go the extra mile to putty and rent a sander.i would LOVE my next home to have hardwood floors. unfortunately the only places out here it seems i can afford are all carpeted condos...god i hate wall-to-wall carpeting
#20
the floor looks beautiful, and hardwood floors are much healthier to live on than carpets
#21
I finished my downstairs floors just after we bought the house, and the upstairs floors last summer. My upstairs floors look super nice, and the downstairs floors look just okay. I was shocked and dismayed when I ripped up the carpet downstairs to find not just stains and crummy boards, but rolling floors that previous owners creatively disguised with extra carpet pad.
Here's a tip: when you're sanding, close all ducts/registers (cram a towel in the duct if you have to) and turn your HVAC system OFF. Sawdust is extremely combusitble, especially the fine powdery stuff that comes up off a sanded floor. If it gets a chance to compress in your ducts and catch a spark then, well....we're all car people here so we know what happens next.
One neighbor friend pulled up her carpet to reveal hardwood floors, patched with concrete to cover a spot where it looked like a return duct used to be.
Modified by sharkracer at 4:17 PM 6-20-2003
#22
My local Home Depot has tool rental. I'll have to see if they have them. How much to rent the sander?If you want the stain to dry faster when it's raining out, turn on the A/C.
Dave.
#23
it was $60 for 24 hour tool rental. and i used up about $60 worth of sand paper.this house is so old it doesn't have central air. we just put in a couple window units last week.
#24
Was this a drum sander, or one with 4 discs? I did this same thing a few weeks ago, and I used a large drum sander from Home Depot. It didn't get nearly as close to the edges as what I saw in your pics. I have about 4 inches of old stain that I couldn't get up all around the place. I'm hoping I can go to another Home Depot and find the sander you used. My floor is in pretty good shape. I have two small spots where the wood is broken up, but that should be easy to fix. I still haven't even touched it with stain, new drywall kind of held up my progress.On another note, does anyone have any tips on refinishing wooden stairs? I was thinking about just painting the risers, and staining the steps.
#25
Quote, originally posted by VWzealot » wow i had know idea we had this forum Hehe,...Me either. The floor looks super clean. I live on wood right now and would never go back to tile or carpet. Just a suggestion, though. How about buying or making smaller area rugs. You'll find that the room has a much larger feeling AND you'll get to enjoy the wood floor w/out covering up it's beauty. Use more rubber or felt pads under the furniture to protect the floor from heavy scratching.
Try going to a few remnant warehouses or carpet stores, buying a smaller cut of patterned carpet , plush, or shag( cut pile berber ) and then having it cut and binded into the specific size. ( binding is averaging $2 to $3/ lineal ft. ). For a 5x7 rug you could be into it for about $100 or less ( depending on the quality of cpt. ).
Good Luck. Once again the floor looks Great.
Modified by 84Notch at 6:40 PM 6-21-2003
#26
Quote, originally posted by agt5 » Was this a drum sander, or one with 4 discs? it was the orbital one with the 4 discs
84notch- thanks for the tips
#27
Quote, originally posted by meatwad79 » i would LOVE my next home to have hardwood floors. unfortunately the only places out here it seems i can afford are all carpeted condos...god i hate wall-to-wall carpeting Yep...I hear ya.....I own a townhouse......previously wall to wall carpeting....I recently laid down the Pergo Laminate flooring....sure it's not the SAME.....but I'll tell ya what. It's some nice looking flooring....and very durable to say the least. I did the job myself by learning on the internet and I attended one do it yourself workshop at Lowes.......next thing you know....I was all done....came out nice.
#28
I have a question about this. I just bought a house with hard wood in all the principal rooms upstairs and while it's not falling apart I wouldn't have minded doing exactly what you've done. while walking through the house with the home inspector I mention this to him and he said don't do it because most hard wood floors are only 3/4 of and inch thick and you take off 1/8 of an inch of the wood when you sand them. I'm I'm unlucky I'll end up taking the floor right up in places. I'll assume this guy knows what he's talking about but has anybody else heard this warning? He also said there is an alternative to sanding that covers up old stain and refinishes. I have no idea what this stuff is called
#29
on older houses it can be a problem if the floors have been refinished a lot. you can tell by looking for nail heads. if you see nail heads then you definitely shouldnt sand anymore.
#30
this orbital sander isn't harsh at all you would probably have to use up 4 sets of 65 grit pads and sand in the exact same spot to sand all the way through.in the dining room there was a deep slash on the from from what looked like an razor blade (i guess they where cutting the foam pading for the carpet there
#31
Where did you hear to use putty between the boards? All the sources I read before finishing my floors said NOT to putty between boards, because they need room for expansion.
#32
the boards are going to expand width wise more than length wise.you should leave gaps around the perimeter for expansion but the boards should all be tight to each other.
#33
Quote, originally posted by sharkracer » Where did you hear to use putty between the boards? All the sources I read before finishing my floors said NOT to putty between boards, because they need room for expansion. heh, i had just got done puttying up the cracks in the walls, and when i was looking at the sanding equipment i saw some wood putty. and it just seemed like the right thing to do at the time
. according to nick it seems ok
#34
hey! the floors look great--all oak, just beautiful. in response to somebody's post--a drum type sander will eat right through your floor if you stay in one place too long(like if you are not experienced in this sort of thing),the orbital sander, also sometimes called a "jitterbug" sander, is much more forgiving,but may take longer to get problem areas uniform with the rest of the floor.
#35
they dont have me bidding for jobs yet, but i am a carpenter for one of your nation's capital's top 30 remodelers.
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