Tips about sanding wood floors?
I’ve been renovating my Carroll Gdns brownstone for about 4 years now and I’m almost done. One of the last parts of the job is sanding and refinishing the 100+ yr old wood floors on the parlor floor. While I’ve never done this before, I’ve done most everything else in the house myself (with help…
I’ve been renovating my Carroll Gdns brownstone for about 4 years now and I’m almost done. One of the last parts of the job is sanding and refinishing the 100+ yr old wood floors on the parlor floor. While I’ve never done this before, I’ve done most everything else in the house myself (with help from friends and family, and contractors) and think I can probably handle it. Also, I had a bad experience with a hack who did some other floor sanding for me. So, I have the following concerns/questions, and would love some input-
1. Best place to rent a sander and edger?
2. Is there lead or other harmful things in old wood floors?
3. I’ve seen ads for hepa sander dustbag attachments – any info?
4. Should I paint the walls/ceiling before or after sanding/refinishing?
5. I have a pretty good solution for filling in the gaps between the planks (paintable clear caulk before the last coat of poly) – but wondering if anyone else has bothered with this?
Thanks.
Do not rent a sander from the tool rental shop on 4th ave. bwtn 14-15 streets. I think it’s called RockTown Tool Rental. They overcharged my credit card a few hundred dollars and then closed shop. It tooks months for the bank to credit me the amount. I submitted a complaint to the NY BBB and they never even mentioned it under the company’s name on the BB website. A few months later, they opened back up. My husband went in there to complain about the overcharge and they just shrugged their shoulders.
We redid our old pine floors ourselves. In our case, they were covered with thick, old paint. Which, of course, had been curing nicely over the years of being covered by layers of disintegrating carpet.
We rented a sander from a place on Apollo & Nassau (we’re in Greenpoint)–while their rentals are sometimes more expensive than, say, Home Depot, we’ve found that the tools we’ve gotten there are in better condition and therefore easier to use than those available at the superstores. We also used a heat gun and a grinder to get at the particularly tough parts under the radiators, etc.
For filling in cracks & big gaps, we used plastic wood putty, which held up pretty well. If you use this instead of clear caulk, which sounds like a good idea to me, will want to buy it in a few colors, since you may need to mix colors in order to match the wood. Also, because I’m kind of anal about this (and a painter), I took a tiny brush and used stain in various colors to basically hand painted over parts of the putty, to match the grain & various quirks in the wood. It took a while, but the results are terrific.
What I DO NOT recommend is using water putty instead of the plastic stuff. We used that in the kitchen because my partner insisted it would be more waterproof. It is too rigid, so it doesn’t move with the floor, and therefore cracks and comes up in large chunks. Bad idea.
We have 18-year-old pine floors that are lovely but worn (including some water damage in parts). Is there anyone who could give me an idea whether we should sand them or just clean and re-poly?
Here’s a photo:
http://www.illegal-art.org/wood-floors.jpg
(They’ve currently got some saw and paint dust on ’em from work in an adjoining room.)
Any insight/info would be very much appreciated.
My husband did four floors of the same thing last summer (of course during that heat wave!). We recommend Total Tool Rental on Nostrand (between Myrtle and Willowby)- they have a number of drum sanders (the heavy duty kind) and they sand evenly – unlike the Home Depot/Lowes ones. They only charge you at the end for all the sand paper etc. so you don’t buy any extra. I’m sure my hubby would be happy to talk you through what he did with the paint (it did melt into the sandpaper and we did try stripping it – I’m not sure what he ended up with). Also he made a mixture of the sawdust and poly that filled in the cracks and looks perfect. We poly’d it and you are welcome to come see how it turned out if you would like. Anyway, his number is 917-204-7362 if you want to call him – I’ll give him a heads up.
Good luck!
Amy
how can you tell what the finish on a floor is? i have old parquet floors, but don’t have a clue if it has a polyurethane finish and would love to clean the floors somehow without sanding
we sand and then paint.
Caulk works great for the gaps between boards.
I am not at all an expert, but I think, latex paint would gum up a sander. Maybe you could strip it chemically or with a heat gun (oh such a lot of work, but not impossible!). As you probably know, latex paint applied over a non-primed surface does not strip too easily, although it is not impossible. Oil paint is much better if you have to strip, comes off much better. How much floor area do you have to deal with? I do not know why gray paint was so popular for floors, our english basement floor is also the same color, thankfully the floor is plastic tile, which we can lose. Tung oil will not take on poly, which again, would have to be stripped or sanded away. I suppose after the paint is stripped, you could sand off the poly and the irregularities and then finish it off with tung oil or whatever else you want, or leave it unfinished like originally and it will start to get back it’s patina. There are several soy based strippers on the market and online that people swear by. Check on the oldhousejournal website too on the posts for some ideas.
Thanks Yeshwant for replying to my actual question. They are old pine. I would love to not sand but here’s the problem – At some point(s) in the past before me, they were sanded, and then half were polyed and half were not, and then the whole thing was painted with gray paint (latex – I think) obviously by someone who didn’t know what they were doing. The latex paint could come off the polyed part fairly easily I guess, but what about where it goes over the unfinished wood? Also, there are areas that are damaged and would benefit from sanding. Can I use tung oil over existing poly? Thoughts?