Refinishing Old Wood Floors

Wood floors. You either hate them or love them. We love them here at ABM, and were so excited when we pulled back the gross carpet in the Habitat house to reveal the house had (possibly original) wood floors in OK shape. Refinishing them was added to the list of to-dos. It was a project I was looking forward to tackling. I had never restored old wood floors before and had only a slight notion of the process from watching HGTV. 

We could have hired a pro, they would have done a good job, and the floors would have looked great. But where’s the fun in that? (And it would have added more to our budget.) We’re really happy that we decided to do it ourselves. Plus, learning new skills is always a mega plus if you ask me.

Let’s get to the process. Like everything else, there are so many different resources for refinishing wood floors. This post is a jumping off point. The one thing I want you to take from this is, don’t be afraid of the sanding process. It’s not as scary or challenging as everybody (including me) seems to perceive it as. Here are the steps I took.

Here’s what the floors looked like just after the old, stained carpet was removed.

The first thing I did was sweep and vacuum the entire house. I hadn’t covered the floors completely when we painted, so there were portions of floor covered in paint. I wasn’t worried about it then, because I figured I was sanding the floor anyway.

I rented a machine called a square buff floor sander on the advice from friends and the rental guy. Until then I was under the impression that other sanders were squirrelly and only pros used them. I sanded the entire house with the square sander. I didn’t really know what to expect. It took most of the paint off, and kind of made the color look more uniform, but I wasn’t impressed. But, they were old floors, so I thought it was as good as it was going to get. Not having a reference for how they should have turned out was an issue. Still, I decided to see if I could improve the floors.

I returned the sander and rented a super duty orbital sander for the edges. As soon as I started sanding with that thing, I knew that I was going to need to resand the entire house. That sander was so aggressive, it sanded down to bare wood with no problem. I realized I hadn’t even sanded past the sealer with the square buffer. My eyes had been opened to the potential of those floors! I went ahead and sanded the entire house from the baseboard to about a foot out. It took some strength to keep that sander under control, but it wasn’t too bad. Seeing it remove all the dirt, paint, sealer, and stain was so satisfying! 

As soon as I was done doing the edges, I rushed back to rentals, anxious to get the right tool and get the floors done right. I rented a drum floor sander and brought it back to the house. I was apprehensive about using it. but as soon as it kicked on and I saw bare wood appearing, I knew I was on the right path.  In a couple of hours I had the entire floor down to bare wood. It looked so good! Sanding that floor felt great.  Here are some tips for sanding I picked up:

-A square sander is for newer unfinished floors! If you are redoing a crappy old stained floor, rent a drum sander!

-The drum sander does not take much to control. They are not hard to work with! You work your way backwards. Start moving even before you start the machine, and you wont get indentions. Turn off the machine before you stop moving. In other word, don’t let the thing sand in one place for even a second, keep moving!

-The drum sander can’t get reach all the way to the wall. That’s what the edger is for. By edging a foot from the baseboard all the way around, I got most of the surface sanded. but I did miss a couple places. That can be avoided by renting the edger after you sand. Or even better, rent both at the same time. 

Man, I was so stoked when I had the entire floor down to bare wood. There are some water stains here and there, especially by the door and kitchen sink. But those could only be fixed by replacing the hardwood, and we didn’t want to take the project that far.

It was time to stain the floors. I chose to stain the floor Special Walnut because it was a good medium shade between the raw wood and the dark water stains. It made the stains less obvious, and gave the floors an overall even color. I applied the stain by hand with a lambswool applicator and rag. If I were to do it again, like in a bigger space, I would just use a mop. 

After letting the stain dry overnight, it was time to seal her up. First I swept the entire floor again to get rid of dust or particles that might have snuck in overnight. Then working from the back room toward the front door I rolled on the polyurethane. Rolling the sealer on worked great. The only thing I had to watch out for were air bubbles forming. I did two coats of sealer, letting the first one dry overnight, sanding, then applying the 2nd coat. To sand, I used a pole sander that is used for sheet rock sanding. 

That’s it! Not so bad, right? The entire process cost about $350, which included the rentals (could have done without the square sander), sanding pads, stain, and sealer. One thing I did was remove all of the old quarter round molding before doing the floors. Replacing that throughout the house, cost about $165. So for about $500 we had close to new looking floors throughout the entire house. Not too shabby! -Josh

Credits // Author: Josh Rhodes, Photography: Emma Chapman. Photos edited with A Beautiful Mess actions.