We’ve refinished hardwood flooring in 5 of the 6 properties we’ve owned. That doesn’t make us skilled flooring refinishers, however as owners and DIYers, we’ve developed experience for what to anticipate, what pitfalls to look out for, and the way a lot refinishing your hardwood flooring may cost. So on this submit, we’ll reply your entire hardwood flooring refinishing FAQs together with some earlier than and after images of our varied initiatives!
Refinishing hardwood flooring is usually a daunting and disruptive mission, however it’s at all times been effectively well worth the effort for us. You possibly can get rid of scratches and discoloration, restore richness and shine, and even change the colour completely! We’re repeatedly shocked by how a lot of a distinction a refinished flooring makes to the entire house. Critically, they will virtually make your home look model new! So let this submit be a supportive-yet-realistic nudge in the direction of taking the plunge.
Hardwood Ground Refinishing FAQS
Listed here are a few of the particular questions we’ll reply on this submit:
- Can I refinish my hardwood flooring myself?
- How a lot does refinishing hardwood flooring price?
- Is refinishing your hardwood flooring value it?
- What’s the course of like?
- Do I’ve to maneuver all of my furnishings out?
- Can I keep in my house whereas getting my flooring refinished?
- How lengthy does refinishing hardwood flooring take?
- What questions ought to I ask my flooring refinisher?
Please be aware that the knowledge on this submit is predicated on our private expertise throughout 6 homes in 3 completely different cities, every of which offered barely completely different situations.
Can I Refinish My Hardwood Ground Myself?
Refinishing hardwood flooring is a mission you are able to do your self, nevertheless, we’ve got performed many many issues ourselves (like constructing a deck, making a pavered patio, and so forth) and we like to go away our flooring refinishing to the professionals. The precise refinishing course of is just not sophisticated – it’s principally sanding and marking! – however professionals carry particular tools, abilities, and experience that the majority DIYers received’t have – particularly proper off the bat. It’s additionally a process that may be tedious, tiring, and time-consuming, so a talented refinisher can full the mission sooner and extra effectively.
If the price of utilizing a professional prevents you from hiring out the job, listed here are some normal steps to refinishing hardwood flooring as a DIY mission:
- Transfer all furnishings, decor, paintings, window therapies, and so forth
- Take away all quarter-round and/or baseboard molding utilizing a pry bar
- Seal off doorways and air vents with plastic sheeting and painter’s tape
- Patch and restore any broken spots with wooden filler and/or new boards
- Sand the ground, often 3-4 occasions, utilizing increased grit sandpaper with every cross. Use a belt sander or drum sander for the bigger areas and a hand or edge sander to do the perimeter. Remember to at all times sand within the path of the wooden grain.
- Do a remaining buff with a flooring buffer or hand sander with high-grit sandpaper
- Vacuum up all mud
- Apply stain (elective) to realize your required shade, following the producer’s directions. Enable 24 hours to dry between coats.
- Apply sealer to guard flooring, following directions. Enable 24 hours earlier than strolling and 72 hours earlier than transferring furnishings or rugs again in.
- Reinstall molding. Caulk and paint as wanted.
As you’ll be able to see, this mission entails numerous detailed and repetitive work. Plus, duties like working flooring sanders could be bodily exhausting, particularly in case you are refinishing a big house. And in case your mission entails any particular or troublesome circumstances, an professional could also be higher outfitted to deal with them.
For instance, we employed professionals to refinish the whole first flooring of our third house just a few years in the past. This concerned tearing out the flooring for 2 rooms that didn’t have already got hardwood flooring and “feathering in” new boards to create a seamless look. The skilled refinishers executed these duties a lot sooner and with larger success than we may’ve on our personal.
This mission additionally concerned eradicating slate tile in a single room and laminate in one other. It took three males a complete day to demo and prep these areas utilizing particular demolition instruments. I can solely think about how a lot time it will’ve taken us!
How a lot does refinishing hardwood flooring price?
Specialists say flooring refinishing sometimes prices between $3-$8 per sq. foot. Which means a 200-square-foot room may price anyplace from $600 to $1,600. These prices will differ relying in your space, the scale of your house, and if there are any particular circumstances to your mission. As an illustration, a few of our initiatives have concerned further demolition or patching of unsalvagable parts (like under).
Personally, we’ve got paid anyplace from $900 to almost $10,000 for our flooring refinishing jobs. The most cost effective was an outlier (about $1.50/sq. foot) as a result of we agreed to do a few of the prep and molding restore ourselves. In fact for the pricier jobs it was much more flooring (like a complete home – we redid the flooring of the duplex and the pink home completely). On common we’ve got paid about $5/sq. foot.
Is Refinishing Hardwood Ground Price It?
Sure and sure! Refinishing hardwood flooring is a rewarding house enchancment for each private and monetary causes. Actually, based on a 2022 Nationwide Affiliation of Realtors report, “Hardwood Ground Refinish” is the #1 inside reworking mission for resale price restoration – much more than putting in new wooden flooring! The NAR estimates owners will earn again practically 150% of the refinishing price in elevated house worth.
Resale worth apart, refinished flooring are a high-impact approach to replace your property to your personal enjoyment. In the identical report, the NAR awards flooring refinishing an ideal 10 on their “Pleasure Rating” for home-owner satisfaction. It’s exhausting to articulate how shockingly good the transformation could be – and that is coming from individuals who have performed it 5 occasions! Folks simply don’t notice how a lot worn, pale, or outdated flooring can drag down the general look of their house.
We all know firsthand that the expense and inconvenience of refinishing your flooring isn’t minor. However each time we’ve performed it, we’ve wished we had performed it sooner. Refinishing hardwoods can actually rework a complete room or home.
What’s the course of like?
So that you’ve determined to have your wood flooring professionally refinished? Nice! Right here’s what to anticipate as a home-owner throughout this mission. Scroll as much as the primary query for our overview of the DIY steps to refinish your hardwood flooring your self (and why we don’t advocate it typically).
Discovering a flooring refinishing skilled
We advise asking associates, neighbors, or different house enchancment contractors you’ve labored with for really helpful flooring refinishers. We’ve discovered all of our favourite flooring refinishers this fashion. Message boards like Nextdoor or Angie’s Record may also level you to respected tradesmen.
Getting an estimate
Your contractor (or potential contractors) ought to go to to measure the house and focus on any questions with you first. This is a chance so that you can get a really feel for them and higher perceive their course of. We’ve steered questions for them additional down on this submit. We frequently will get 2 or 3 completely different estimates to select the perfect (not essentially most cost-effective!) individual for our job.
Acclimating the wooden
A number of of our refinishing initiatives concerned including or changing sections of our wood flooring, which meant including new boards (or reclaimed boards, proven above). New hardwood flooring ought to acclimate to the moisture ranges in your house earlier than set up to stop swelling or contracting afterward. This implies new flooring needs to be delivered and saved indoors at the very least 3 days earlier than set up. Some installers advocate as much as 2 weeks of acclimation. (Don’t depart the doorways and home windows open throughout this time).
Emptying your house
Take away all furnishing, rugs, home equipment, and/or different gadgets obstructing clear and open entry to your flooring. This might additionally contain uninstalling cabinetry or plumbing fixtures as effectively. Additionally, you will wish to take away (or cowl) paintings, window coverings, or different gadgets you don’t wish to get dusty. If you’re solely refinishing one room, you’ll be able to often transfer this stuff into a close-by room. If you’re refinishing a complete home, it’s possible you’ll want to maneuver out virtually completely. We used a POD in our driveway once we refinished our first stage. A storage unit additionally works. Some individuals might even rent a transferring firm.
Selecting a stain shade
In some unspecified time in the future through the course of, it’s best to work together with your refinisher to pick a stain shade. Chances are you’ll be happy choosing from a swatch ebook or trusting your skilled to match a sure look. However we advocate having the ground refinisher stain small pattern sections straight onto the ground (which could be sanded off afterward). This lets you see massive swatches in your house, serving to you are feeling assured about your resolution.
Ready and extra ready
Ground refinishing is a multi-day course of, regardless of the scale of your mission. Stains and sealers want numerous drying time (often at the very least 24 hours every) and it’s really helpful that you just wait a number of extra days for them to treatment (aka: harden) earlier than transferring heavy furnishings again in. When our first flooring was refinished, we slept out of the home for six nights and didn’t totally transfer our furnishings again in for one more 10 days.
Cleansing & touch-ups
Whereas our contractors have at all times performed a great job of gathering as a lot mud via the method, we inevitably had mud left on some surfaces that we would have liked to wash ourselves. Moreover, you or your contractor might must reinstall, caulk, and paint any baseboard or quarter spherical that was eliminated. We provided to do that ourselves in a few cases to save cash. Identical goes for home equipment, cupboards, or plumbing fixtures that will have been eliminated.
Do I’ve to maneuver all of my furnishings out?
Sure, you’ll need to take away all obstructions from any rooms the place you’re refinishing the flooring. This consists of furnishings, rugs, home equipment, plumbing fixtures (bathrooms, sinks, and so forth), and possibly even cabinetry. We additionally advocate eradicating paintings, window coverings, and different decor you received’t wish to fear about dusting later.
This is the reason it’s best – if doable – to refinish your flooring earlier than transferring into a house or as a part of one other renovation (like a kitchen transform) the place your property is already disrupted. If that’s not doable, deal with it like you’re transferring out briefly. When you can’t transfer your furnishings into unaffected rooms or ranges of your property, it’s possible you’ll must hire a storage unit or POD to carry your furnishings.
Transferring out of your house is just not a small process, we all know. It’s the primary cause we postpone refinishing flooring in a few of our homes. And sadly, not like initiatives like portray, you’ll be able to’t merely scoot issues into the center of the room and throw a tarp over them. There isn’t a shortcut right here. To get the very best high quality, best end result, it’s finest to present your contract clear, unobstructed entry to each space that wants refinishing.
How lengthy does refinishing hardwood flooring take?
Having your flooring refinished sometimes takes 3 to 14 days or extra, relying on the scope of your mission. Listed here are some GENERAL time allotments it’s possible you’ll must account for.
- Prep (demo previous flooring, take away quarter spherical, uninstall plumbing, and so forth): 0-2 days
- Restore, patching, or laying new sections of hardwood: 0-2 days
- Sanding: 1 – 2 days (about 1,000 sq. toes per day)
- Staining: 1 – 2 days (about 1,000 sq. toes per day)
- Sealing: 3 – 6 days (about 1,000 sq. toes per day, 1 coat per day)
- Curing: 1 day
Our shortest mission solely took 4 days for 600 sq. toes. Our refinisher was in a position to sand and stain on the primary day, then spent the subsequent 3 days making use of one coat of oil-based polyurethane every day. We nonetheless waited one other 3 days to maneuver again in, permitting the end to treatment and the fumes to completely dissipate.
One approach to velocity up a refinishing mission is to skip stain and simply clear coat the pure shade of the ground. You can too shorten the sealing course of by selecting water-based finishes, which dries sooner than oil-based finishes. That will permit your refinisher to use a number of coasts in in the future, versus oil-based polyurethane that sometimes requires 24 hours between coats.
It’s finest to debate the timeline together with your contractor upfront and ask in regards to the professionals and cons of assorted choices. The quickest end result is probably not finest long-term end result for you.
What questions ought to I ask my flooring refinisher?
We’ve labored with 4 completely different flooring refinishers throughout 5 completely different properties. Listed here are some issues we advocate discussing with them up entrance to be sure to are on the identical web page earlier than the mission begins.
- Are my flooring good candidates for refinishing?
- Do any areas should be repaired or changed with new wooden?
- How lengthy does any new wooden must acclimate earlier than you start?
- What must be faraway from every room? Who’s doing that, me otherwise you?
- What must be coated, protected, or sealed off with plastic? Who’s doing that, me otherwise you?
- What different preparation do you recommend / anticipate me to take earlier than you arrive?
- Are you eradicating & reinstalling any baseboard molding? If not, ought to I?
- Are there any duties I may do to scale back the mission price?
- Are there any duties I may pay you to do to extend the mission velocity?
- How lengthy do you anticipate the mission to take?
- Are there any choices that would velocity up the mission?
- How a lot time will I should be out of the home?
- How do I partake within the stain shade choice? Can I see check spots in my house?
- What different selections will you want me on web site for through the mission?
- What sort of sealer do you advocate? What are the professionals and cons of my choices?
- How lengthy till I’m in a position to stroll on my new flooring?
- How lengthy till my pet can stroll on them?
- How lengthy till I can put furnishings, rugs, or different heavy objects on them?
You possibly can definitely Google a few of the solutions to those questions (some are on this submit!) however we at all times advocate conferring together with your on-site skilled as effectively. This helps them know you’re a considerate consumer and you’ll hopefully get reassurances that they’re a educated refinisher. It additionally helps keep away from confusion round timelines, budgets, and scope of labor.
Our Hardwood Ground Refinishing Initiatives
If you want to learn extra about our particular hardwood flooring refinishing initiatives, please see the posts under. They vary from matching authentic hardwoods to new prefinished flooring (under) to restoring 100-year-old pine flooring!
Extra Flooring Initiatives
If you want to examine different flooring initiatives we’ve performed, please try the posts under:
NOTE: This information was initially printed in 2009 after our first refinishing expertise. We up to date it with extra data and images to incorporate a wider vary of initiatives in 2024.
