Floor refinishing in Denver

[Bob Coleman]

Hi All,

I just bought a 1925 house in Denver with what I imagine are the original floors - oak in the living room, dining room and kitchen and pine in the bedrooms - which someone carpeted.

Does anyone know of a good guy to take up the carpet and refinish these for me? Probably about 300-400 sf total.

Thanks in advance!
Bob

[Neal Clayton]

this really isn't that difficult a job bob, if you have someone to help with the heavy lifting (moving the furniture out, rolling the carpet up, and hauling it to the dump).

the random orbital floor sanders that the big box hardware stores rent are pretty easy to learn to use.

i tore up all of the carpet over my 1908 floors and refinished them myself a few years ago before i knew anything about floors ;), didn't have any troubles.

just have to go around on hands and knees making sure to get all of the carpet staples out, sand the old finish starting with a very harsh grit (i used 36), then go up to 120 and a light pass with 220 or so. then hands and knees again with tack cloth after vacuuming it, and finish away. if you're not going to stain (not easy to do on the pine, so not recommended either way for that), the finish itself is pretty simple, just mop yourself out of the room with a lambswool pad on a broom handle, overlapping your passes with the pad about an inch every time you move over. you'll have to do the edges around your baseboards and door frames with smaller handheld sanders, and you'll want to tape those off when you start finishing to avoid getting your floor finish on them, but that's about all there is to it.

either way, the first thing you wanna do is take a peek inside of an air vent and see if the floors have been sanded/refinished before. there's only so much you can sand before you hit the tongue/groove joint. if they've been sanded multiple times in the past that can be an issue, and if there isn't enough left to sand away you might have to bring someone in to chemically strip them instead. that's the only gotcha in the whole deal.

[Bob Coleman]

I would do it myself (and have) but the sellers are putting up $500 towards the job, so I need a third party to do it. Would that I could get them to cut that check to me!

C'mon, somebody out here has to have a guy . . .

[Christof Grohs]

I would do it myself (and have) but the sellers are putting up $500 towards the job, so I need a third party to do it. Would that I could get them to cut that check to me!

C'mon, somebody out here has to have a guy . . .


Bob,
Look at the NWFA list here: Denver (http://www.woodfloors.org/consumer/findProResults.aspx?id=1&param1=denver&param2=)
Floor refinishing is not really a DIY project. As a flooring contractor myself, I get too many a call from home owners who thought the could DIY. Also, there are many fly-by-nights out there trying to cut throats by offering junk work at cheap prices...buyer beware. If you want good work hire somebody off that list of NWFA contractors and expect a 400ft job to run $1500+/- Good floor contractors are typically not hungry for work unless you live in Vegas :eek: