Wood floor refinishing - possible weekend project

Our floor guy was more than open to the notion of touching up the finish rather than re-sanding, wherever that was reasonable. It wasn’t, in our case, but I think it’d be worth getting a look-see and a quote from a pro. Especially since quotes are free (at least out here in northern California).

-- Dan Lyke, Petaluma California, http://www.flutterby.net/User:DanLyke

If you don’t want to sand the entire floor one option you can do is to spot sand through the finish in the stained area and treat it with oxalic acid if you suspect it is a stain due to the presence of iron, or bleach for mildew or food stains (use swimming pool bleach rather than clorox, to try and remove the stain. Once this is done you can use a stain to try and blend the color in with the rest of the floor. Then, if the topcoat will adhere to the old finish, you can scuff sand it and apply a top coat (usually poly). This will shine it up.

But you need to check for and remove any wax that may have been used. Here is a web site that may help:

http://www.woodfloordoctor.com/_how_tos/articles/cleanpt2.shtml

Hope this helps.

-- With God's help all things are possible- even woodworking. Woodworking is not just a hobby, it is an (expletive deleted) expensive hobby.

I sanded and refinished the solid oak floors in our house after we moved in. When we bought the house it had wall to wall carpeting. When we were doing the walk through, before purchasing the house, I pealed up a corner of the carpet, looked underneith, and though “sweet!”

After buying the house we ripped out all the carpet. The carpet pad was old an crusty, so I had to buy a scapper to clean the surface. Next, I went to Home Depot, and rented a stand-up vibrating sander with a square pad. It cost me $80/day for the rental. I only had about 600 sq. feet to do, so it only took me one day. Most pro’s use a belt sander, but they have a couple of disadvantages.

1) They can be hard to control for newbies, and you can seriously gouge your floor.
2) They grind off a lot of wood.

The vibrating pad worked great, and it was kind of fun to use. The other advantage was that I could easily sand the corners with the square pad. I started out with a 20 grit mesh pad, and ended up with 320 sand paper.

I finished the floor with a water based finish, but I don’t think I would do that again. It looked great. Unlike oil based finishes, it did not change the natural color of the wood. The down side was that it has not proven to be as durable as I would have expected. It has been a little over three years, and we are starting to see some significant wear in the high traffic areas.

-- Scott, San Diego