Hardwood floors often survive a lifetime in your home; they are an outstanding investment that compels maintenance just like anything else in your home. Over the years, it has been completely normal to detect some wear and tear on those gorgeous wood floors. A few scrapes and dents do not imply you have to go out and buy new hardwood floors; what you need to do is refinish your hardwood floors. Often, only cleaning the wood is not enough to restore the luster of your hardwood floor, and you may have to carry a wood floor refinishing. It is a time-consuming job, but it will replenish your floor’s natural shine and bring life back to your wood flooring.
You cannot rely on the fact that fading of your floor is not the only indication. Several other factors indicate that your bed needs refinishing, such as stains of ink or food, big scratches and cuts, erosion of the flooring’s protective cover, etc. Solid hardwood floors can be refinished nearly ten times before expecting to be replaced.
The whole refinishing process will take almost three days to finish. Refinishing is a three-step process: cleaning, preparing, ventilating, sanding, vacuuming, staining, and applying a protective finish to the wood floor. It is important to understand the whole process of refinishing your floor so that when you hire someone or you do the job yourself, you know what needs to be done. The step-by-step guide to refinishing the wood floor is as follows:
- 1. Clean the wood floor room
The first step for refinishing the wood floor is cleaning the room. It is essential to remove the belongings such as upholstery, electrical appliances, wardrobes from the rooms so that you have proper space to carry out the job. Ensure that your cupboards are cleaned out too if the wood flooring expands to these locations.
- 2. Prepare the Floors
The second task is the most tedious one. It requires preparing the floor before refinishing. You must clean the surface properly before sanding the floor. It requires covering the light fixtures using masking tape to protect the cover. Afterward, you must apply tap to structures such as outlets, vents, HAVC system, switches and another outlet in your room. You have to close the room off to keep dust composed in the space you are sanding.
- 3. Ventilating the room
Before starting the sanding process, you need to ensure that the room is suitably ventilated. You can open the fan in the direction of the windows so that the sawdust does not completely accumulate in the room and blows out of the room. While doing this process, you must wear protective gear such as a mask, helmet, and glasses not to inhale them and get any infection.
- 4. Sanding the wood floor
The third step requires sanding the wood floor. So after the room is cleaned and prepared, you can start with the sanding procedure. Proper sanding will level the wood floor. For this process, you have to start from the center of the room with heavy grit paper and a sander. You must sand the complete room and do it until you have uniformly done the process.
- 5. Vacuum the room
After sanding, put a clean filter in the vacuum cleaner, vacuum the entire room and clean up all dust and residue with a dry cloth. Then wipe down the windows, walls and floors between the flooring stripes and boards. Lastly, dry-tack the wood floor with a microfiber cloth propelled with the grain.
- 6. Stain the floor
The next step in the procedure is staining the floor. For staining the bottom, you can use an old cotton cloth. You need to apply the stain with the grain, then allow it to sit for nearly 10 minutes and dab it off with a neat cotton towel. Permit the paint to dry for at least twenty-four hours. Before using any product, you must read the usage instruction carefully. Otherwise, you may not get the right results. Follow the guidelines precisely.
- 7. Using a protective finish
To end the wood floor refinishing, you need to apply a protective coat over the flooring. Big bristle brushes and applies the finish with the grain for this use. Remember to hold the room well ventilated. Depending on humidity, drying time will differ and can take twenty-four hours or more to dry entirely.
Before refinishing the wood flooring, look at these essential points:
- The thickness of your wood floors should be at least 3/4″ as sanding can eliminate quite a fraction of ground, so floors that are thinner than 3/4″ may not be adequate for refinishing.
- Even after carrying out the procedure yourself, you do not feel that your floor is thin, then you must call the specialist to do the work for you.
- If you have recently replaced the flooring and these floors are ¼”, you must not carry refinishing for them as they are not eligible for it.
