If you're lucky sufficient to find hardwood floors hiding under your tired carpeting, you might feel like face the wood back up. That's understandable because refinishing the floors yourself seems like an impossible task.Hardwood floors were a common feature in houses until the 1960s. Before that, having wall-to-wall rug was carefully a luxury upgrade. From the 1970s on, most homes had wall-to-wall rug in nearly every room. However, tastes change, and over the last incorporate decades, hardwood floors have once again come to be fashionable and desirable. Oftentimes, when I'm talking with person about fixing houses, they ask if refinishing hardwood floors is something they can do themselves. Unless the person has a corporal intuit why they can't do it, I ordinarily say yes. However, I also remind them that redoing hardwood floors takes a great deal of time, sweat, and elbow grease. As a normal rule, floors of fifty quadrate feet or less can be sanded by hand, but for any floor larger than that, rent or buy a small orbital sander. Everything important for doing it yourself will be available at your local hardware store. You can buy a pretty good galvanic sander nowadays for less than 0, which can be a good investment, especially if you're planning to work on your home on a quarterly basis.The first layer to be removed is often a thick wax coating, followed by a coat of whether polyurethane or varnish. A heavy duty market wax stripper can remove the wax, and then a lacquer thinner or acetone can be wiped on to put in order the wood for the next step. If there are any rug tacks or pieces of old nails in the wood, remove them first. The remnant of a nail can tear up sandpaper, damage a sanding pad, and do serious damage to the palm of your hand, so check carefully to make sure all remnants of tacks and nails are gone before you begin sanding. Fill all nail holes with a quality wood filler, matching the color as closely as you can, and let it dry. Then you're ready to begin sanding the floor with 220-grit sandpaper, whether by hand or with a sander. When you're done sanding, wipe the whole floor with a damp cloth to remove as much sanding dust as possible. Damp cloths work good than vacuum cleaners. Let the floor dry, and then wipe it again with a tack rag, which is a cloth impregnated with resin to pick up fine dust particles. Again, your local hardware store will have what you need.After the floor is as clean as you can get it, apply three coats of polyurethane with a paint pad, allowing each coat to dry thoroughly, lightly sanding with 220-grit paper, and wiping the floor with a damp cloth and a tack rag in the middle of coats. If you prefer an old-fashioned finish, you can use a 50/50 combination of linseed oil and mineral spirits and then wax the floors with beeswax or paste wax. Take caution with the chemical combination and the rags because they can catch on fire. You can refinish hardwood floors yourself. It just takes time and effort--and a good set of kneepads wouldn't hurt, either! Once you finish, you'll have a beautiful floor to be proud of and ready for that next "do it yourself" project--perhaps the next room with hardwood floors. Copyright © 2006 Jeanette J. Fisher
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