Hardwood Floor Re-Finish + short story

[Joe D'Attilio]

We just purchasd our first home in Dec and have spent the last 9 months dealing, ____ brown walls and a carpet with stains and all around NASTINESS.

LOML decided after months of peeling little pieces of the PAINTED wallpaper, we should pull it all, prep the walls and repaint.

As the son of a lifetime do-it-yourself'er, I chimed if we're doing the walls lets pull the base board and replace too, (which was also fashioned with the interior decorating razzmatazz of the nasty carpeting - 6 inch thick baseboard donning carpet with 20 staples psi):mad:

Well now we're replacing baseboard which covers a 4inch gap between floor 50 yr old plaster walls - so i know my work is cut out for me, trying to remove the old and repalce without damaging the base of the walls (may have to install base pieces for a solid surface to attach the base board)

Again no big deal, so what else do i chime in should be done - LET'S REMOVE THE CARPET perhaps there are HARDWOOD FLOORS:cool:

Good news yes there are big SCORE!

Bad news, 200 stpales, popped nails and the ingenious homeowner who spray painted the radiator covers - PROCEEDED TO DO SO ON THE HARD WOOD FLOORS!!! :mad:

Short story long...

Need help, do's & don'ts, and any general tips for refinishing hardwood floors.

SO far the best info I have rec'd is:


Rent a low speed orbital, not the drum sander (I ARE NOVICE):D
Make sure all (1000)nails are set and filled:(
Take your time

HELP!!!!:confused:

[rob mason]

We did this at our church as part of a resotration project. We removed the carpet to find some gorgeous heart pine with thousands of staples. We took shifts and used lights at floor-level at night so we could see the little buggers. Took several nights after work to remove them using a variety of tools: slip joint pliers, locking liers, screwdrivers, nail pullers, etc.

We then filled all the holes with a filler. A professional floor company came in and sanded and poly'd the entire surface. It turned out gorgeous.

[Neal Clayton]

the orbital is newbie proof, yes, the drum will dig a hole if used improperly, yes (it's just a big belt sander).

damage to the walls isn't that big a deal, you'll have to seal between baseboard and wall anyway when you're done (you can do it with setting compound, not premixed joint compound, the difference is one dries and shrinks, the other sets by chemical reaction and stays stable. or of course, real plaster..USG diamond coat is typically available from builders supply places and works fine). use a bonder, they have it at the borg in the concrete section. if you wind up having to do entire walls, consider just prepping the walls (scrape anything loose to brown coat) and hiring a plasterer. plaster is more of an art than a trade, imo. what takes you a week a couple of plaster/stucco guys can do in an hour. they're not cheap but the time savings is worth it at some point. as a guage of cost, i got ~1500 square feet of newly framed blueboard closets and old original ceilings done for about 2500 dollars. the guy i use does primarily stucco, so we just worked out a deal where his guys could come do what i needed done on a rainy day when they couldn't work on their other job(s) outside, and i'd pay him his labor cost + materials and a couple hundred extra bucks per day. now is a good time, though, plasterers are knee deep in work in the spring/summer from winter stucco damage and swimming pool rehabs. in the fall they're not so busy so you can probably find one with some time on his hands.

don't fill gaps between the boards with regular wood putty, it needs something that can expand/contract. i personally leave hairline cracks as they are, wide cracks i fill with black caulk. if you want to try and match your finish the borg stores have a hardwood floor filler that's basically caulk in odd wood finish'y colors which works fine too. if the boards are room length you'll probably find that all of the nails are along the walls, so there might not be alot of nail setting to do (unless a stupid previous owner shot nails everywhere to try and stop creaks, which is very possible from the sounds of your previous owner).

a) sand floor with 35-50 grit to remove the old finish.
b) vacuum with shop vac
c) mop with mineral spirits to reveal any rough spots that need more sanding
d) sand rough spots
e) sand with 100-120 and 220-300
f) vacuum and mop again
g) wipe whole thing with tack cloth, it must be surgery clean to finish just like any other wood finishing
h) sand with 220-300 between coats and tack again before the next coat
i) if it's old pine like rob had, either don't stain it or use a conditioner/sealer first. absorbancy rates on old soft woods are...well...interesting (in a very uneven and splotchy way usually) ;). a finish that produces the color you want with no color additives or stain coats would be your best bet if that's the case.

i'm not really a fan of polyurethane on historic floors and doors and trim especially if in a low traffic area, it's too plastic looking for my taste. tung oil based products like waterlox look much more historically accurate to me, or, garnet shellac makes everything look better ;). not knocking poly in rob's case since he's got high traffic with high heels and dress shoes all day, but for a house i prefer something more authentic.

if you plan on replacing your baseboards with all-in-one standard new house style baseboards, well, you can probably forget it. your walls probably aren't square and your floors probably aren't level. you can make a traditional 3 piece baseboard work due to the reasons below, but a one-piece baseboard will be difficult at the very best. you'll find that there's a reason for the way things were assembled way back when. if you have end caps at the base of your doors, that's what they do..give a flat surface for the baseboard to butt up against at the end of a molding run. quarter round will hide any bottom gaps, and when plaster is set on the baseboard cap, everything looks fine. if a whole wall is off, no big deal, just make a cockeyed end cap to make it all flow together, that's what they're for. i even have walls where the floor slopes one way and the wall slopes the other. all you gotta do is cut out the door frame, re-shim it to square and level it up, and re-attach the trim with the base caps cut at whatever wierdo angle you need to make it all match.