Finishing unfinished hardwood floors

After many missteps, two offers made on houses we missed on, and probably thirty different houses shown to us, SWMBO and I have finally gone under contract on a house. Nice place, price is right, and it has a lot of neat 60's touches. One of those is that it has hardwood floors on the main level that have never been finished - apparently when the house was built in 1963, the buyer (who was the only owner until now) put tack strips down on the edge of the rooms and laid carpet down. The carpet's been replaced at least once, but the floors were never finished. The carpet was never glued down, either.

I know that refinishing hardwood is a pain, but that's mostly because you have to sand all the old stuff down and try to level high spots, right? What do I need to do to finish this stuff? How much sanding, what grit, etc? (I'm presuming I'll at least need to clean up where the tack strips were down on the edges.) Does anyone have any reccomendations on stain or sealer?

My dad, grandad, and I helped my uncle refinish the floors in his old place when I was in my early teen years. Similar situation, with carpet laid down on top of hardwood, although the hardwood I think did have a finish on it in this case.

Rent a big ass orbital sander, they have ones like the size of those floor polishing machines you always see janitors using in the movies. DO NOT rent a drum sander, they hog off way too much material way too quickly. We learned that the hard way.

First off - Congrats on the house!

Vibratory sander (not a drum) - rent the big dog and make sure you have a good mask. You'll also need a decent smaller one for the trim areas. Other than that you are correct that it is simple to finish. Stain you choice of colors and then decide what finish of poly you want to use. The gloss is the toughest but is also hell to keep looking nice. Semi gloss seems to be a good comprimise but take a look some samples at a decent paint store like Sherwin Williams. Don't plan on sleeping in that house for 12 hrs when the poly is down. Not only awful but downright dangerous. Ask me how I know that...

Whatever you do, don't ever use an acrylic top coat e.g. Future or anything like it. Just say NO to acrylic.

84FSP wrote: First off - Congrats on the house! Vibratory sander (not a drum) - rent the big dog and make sure you have a good mask. You'll also need a decent smaller one for the trim areas. Other than that you are correct that it is simple to finish. Stain you choice of colors and then decide what finish of poly you want to use. The gloss is the toughest but is also hell to keep looking nice. Semi gloss seems to be a good comprimise but take a look some samples at a decent paint store like Sherwin Williams. Don't plan on sleeping in that house for 12 hrs when the poly is down. Not only awful but downright dangerous. Ask me how I know that...

Thanks! I'm really excited. Had hoped to be doing this three or four years ago, but life happened.

We have two weeks between when we close on the new place and when we have to be out of the old. I'm going to try to get the floors done in the first few days we own it so the poly can go down and cure while we're still sleeping elsewhere.

For the finish, I personally recommend Glisten (spelling?) Santico. Bulitproof. Toxic as hell so follow the directions with plenty of ventilation. It's from Sweden, and the Swedish make good stuff.

I'm going to buck the trend here and recommend hiring a professional.

We had a remarkably similar situation - 1963-vintage house, oak floors throughout, never finished under wall-to-wall in a couple rooms.

I rented an drum sander for the field and a belt sander for the edge work. It took a solid 2-3 days of backbreaking labor - like, the day after I got done, I could barely walk and couldn't stand up straight. Between rentals, supplies, etc it cost me maybe 75% of what it would have cost to just have a pro come do it in 1 day. It's not that complex a job, and the results were fine, but the cost savings was totally not worth all the effort.

Unless you need to squeeze every last dollar, just get somebody who does this for a living to take care of it and move on.

I was going to say hire a professional. It will be done in two days and you won't break sweat or inhale any saw dust or toxic fumes.

I know how to do it, but I'd hire a pro.

It's back breaking work, and every pro I know is a bit looney from sniffing that stuff. Plus, it's kind of like welding- it really does take developing a touch to do a good job.

A vibratory or orbital sander clouds the grain (because it is always cutting in a cross-grain direction, no matter which way it is going). You will get a far better finish with much better depth and color if you use a belt sander and scraper, but if you don't know what you are doing, it's pretty easy to mess it up.

BTW- that's quite a find- a 50 year old floor that has never been finished!

FWIW when we completed the apartment conversion on the 2nd floor of our building, the floors had never been finished. They had chunks missing, were dirty, had tacks imbedded in places(it had been a former buggy-repair shop - they used a hoist to get them upstairs), etc. We honestly though the character it added was cool, and I figured the best bet was just to lay down polyurethane on top of it as-is. Thick.

It worked out surprisingly well for us, though I'm not sure whether you're more interested in retaining the original charm/character vs. having nice smooth finished floors? Also - the fumes...I had every window open, fans going, wore a respirator the entire time, and I'm sure I still killed quite a few brain cells. It also took several weeks for the smell to go way and/or us to become noseblind to it.

I sanded one floor of a house w/ a large rental orbital sander. It used a proprietary sized abrasive sheet and the floor turned out to have been coated with shellac over the original oil base 1948 coating, leading to an infinite number of tiny, rock-hard ball bearings being formed and adhering to the abrasive. I'm very comfortable with a big abrasives budget - I have a machine shop and do a lot of composites work, but this was silly.

It took FOREVER, cut very slowly, and wasn't near cutting the floor back to flat. I used the recommended products from (name of company on the front of the sander) and within a few years they were flaking everywhere. Not good. And I've done all manner of fine wood work finishing from sprayed lacquers, rubbed oils, marine spar varnish, etc. I'm the anti-n00b.

So on house #2 we got quotations from the three best hardwood floor companies in the area. The one with the most work and the least advertising was about equal, but their people could immediately answer every question I asked and didn't simply assume I was an idiot. They notched in a lot of repairs including where I'd removed metal bi-fold closet door jambs and floor vents, and laid new 5" wide x 1" thick white oak in a hall and master bed room. Then it was all sanded and 4 coats of water base acrylic urethane applied, screened between the first 3 coats.

The house was empty, de-trimmed and walls skimmed and primed but unpainted.

Best money I've ever paid a sub contractor. Period.

I have done it a couple times on some nice red oak flooring in our old place. IMO it's a shame to stain nice timber, just let the natural timber finish & colour stand out. I rented an orbital sander from an equipment shop as they're more forgiving than the rotary sanders but it was a lot of work to do it all myself. If you do it yourself, rent a sander that has an attachment to connect a shop vac, so it sucks up dust while sanding - otherwise it's a pain in the butt to have to wipe down all the walls 3x before they're properly clean again.

You have to consider what your time and energy is worth. A pro can probably do a better job in a quarter of the time for a few hundred bucks above what you'd pay for materials and rental.

To finish the floors we used Minwax water-based Oil Modified Polyurethane - doesn't smell half as bad as the oil-based finishes. We also went with a satin finish, as you see every mark, spill or fleck of dust on a gloss finish.

Good luck, and post pics!

I think I would pay someone for this as well. Take a look at Polywhey for a smell free (ore nearly so) finish. I've not used their floor finish, but have used the furniture finish to do some butcher block counter tops and it went on easily and so far seems to be a good finish.

SVreX wrote: I know how to do it, but I'd hire a pro. It's back breaking work, and every pro I know is a bit looney from sniffing that stuff. Plus, it's kind of like welding- it really does take developing a touch to do a good job. A vibratory or orbital sander clouds the grain (because it is always cutting in a cross-grain direction, no matter which way it is going). You will get a far better finish with much better depth and color if you use a belt sander and scraper, but if you don't know what you are doing, it's pretty easy to mess it up.

What he said.

I've done it. It's days of backbreaking labor. It will make you cuss like a sailor. If you do it yourself, you will never want anyone to walk on the floor again for fear of damaging it.

Because it needs repeating: The drum sanders will berkeley up a floor in a hurry if you aren't very careful. Better finish, but much larger chance of ruining the job. I don't think you want to orbital sand oak. The grain is what makes it beautiful.

Do they actually NEED to be refinished? Are they smooth at all? When we moved into our house the floors were a mess. 1/4 ply had been hammered down over part of it. The floors were not sealed or possibly ever sanded after installation back in 1954.

We got a big vibrating sander and put on a buffing pad, then went to town with an old school cleaning solution we found in an old home repair book. Once it was clean we hand rubbed the entire thing with tung oil. It isn't perfect but it looks MUCH better. I filled in the nail holes with wood putty and spot sanded just the filler.

We love the way it looks, as the floor changes colors and character throughout the house. We also don't freak out if we scratch the floor or spill something. Just a thought.

The ONLY advantage of a vibrating sander is that it will prevent you from cutting too deeply. It will NOT give a good finish.

Just as most people here can see orange peel in a car's paint finish, anyone who understands wood finishing can see a job that has been sanded with an orbital sander.