Can we save our original parquet floors?
there is also a trick to asking contractors questions. if you begin asking a guy who pulls up in a van that has giant letters on it that say NORWEGIAN WOOD FLOORS too may questions, they will answer them to gain your confidence but after a while they may look at you funny (they are at a point in their careers where they tell us how it is done). ask those people a few specific questions about the thin wood and finishes and let them tell you what finishes they like and see if that suits you. the real questions are for the other people who may come into your sphere, the ones we are not sure about. when we ask the ones we are not sure about pointed questions, if they cannot answer them, they will make you out to be the bad person. i have seen it happen on jobs where they walk out on the customer, blaming the customer and calling them a pain in the neck. you do not want those people in your life.
andriywww1990
in General Discussion 4 years and 4 months ago
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Guest User | 4 years and 4 months ago
Our contractor was going to sand and poly our original floors on the parlor level, 12″ oak squares, but after an attempt to sand them he claims that they’re just too thin to sand any more and they should be replaced… I’m estimating that they’re about 1/8″ thick at this point. Does anyone think that they might be able to be sanded with a very thin sandpaper, just enough that we could poly them again? In addition, a few of the “keys” are busted/missing so there are a few squares we’d need to replace. I’ve sourced the parquet squares at NY Hardwood Floors but it seems like it will be a lot of work to sand them down to 1/8″… is there another way to get thinner wood pieces?
Also, anyone have a ballpark number for this job of sanding/staining the floor might cost? The area is about 600 sq feet.
Or, if we have to put down (glue down) new parquet… anyone have an estimate what this might cost us? Especially if we have borders and such, I’m imagining it will be quite expensive?
colonialrevival | 4 years and 4 months ago
1/8” is much too thin. Your floors are wearing their final finishing.
Guest User | 4 years and 4 months ago
thanks for your input… We could actually live with them as-is for now… however there’s a few busted or missing keys, do you know if we could replace those and somehow get them to match the others with a stain?
Or would it be possible to add a stain on top of the existing poly to make the areas match more, or must one sand before applying poly and/or stain?
RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 4 years and 4 months ago
A coating of Rejuvinate might make the existing floors easier to live with. The stuff is inexpensive and simple to apply I’ve been using it for years, although my floors were sanded and polyurethaned when I bought my house, so they’re probably in better shape than yours
andriywww1990 | 4 years and 4 months ago
pull one of the strips up and confirm it is down to 1/8″. if they are, say 3/16″ you might get away with a sanding. might. i would talk to a flooring shop, new york floors outside lowes or a real floor person. if it were 1/8 in my house, i would not do it as if you do, the edges will begin to lift and curl like paper or thin veneer. and they will tear.
in lieu of sanding you can screen. screening removes damaged finish but does not take the wood down. i screened my floors when we moved in because we had to get it done fast. if you screen them, you can add poly (after tacking them off to remove dust)(if i were not busy doing doors, i would offer to screen yours, but there is not a lot of money in it; it is like stripping wax off any other kind of floor and reapplying the wax (instead this is on wood and we are using poly)). if you screen and want to darken the floors a bit, you can perhaps add a little tint to the poly (tint from a finishing supply house, not home depot or a corner paint store). and then over coat with another clear poly to protec t the tinted poly.
in so far as the missing pieces, i used to replace them, cutting them on site for people. that would not be expensive if it is a few pieces.. also keep in mind, the keys are a different wood. they look only a little different when unfinished, but as soon as you put the poly on, they go dark again (its not that they are stained). i think the keys in my queens house are mahogany inlaid around an oak floor.
i have to repair some damaged spots in my house and will do so by hand sanding. i am then going to seal the sanded spots and put a coat of poly on and then screen the entire floor to blend it. i was thinking of doing a video of this and posting it someplace as a lot of people do not know how to blend a repair in wood, especially in floors. but it can be done with almost perfect results if one screens and over coats the entire floor after working the repaired area.
you cannot stain over existing poly. you cannot stain after screening (stain goes on raw wood; screening leaves poly in the grain of the wood, it is still “sealed” for the most part). you can poly over poly but you should screen first (i used to screen a gymnasium annually with 60/80/100/120/180 grit screens. we might have gone to 220). we have a small kitchen and i wanted to over coat it so instead of bringing in all sorts of equipment in, i violated all sorts of labor laws and what many “experts” in modern parenting think is good for kids these days and i had my then 14 year old son get down on his hands and knees and give the floor a sanding with a dewalt sander. 150/180/220 grit. he dusted it off and i put the finish down. that was two years ago and the floor looks brand new and my now 16 year old knows more about how to service a wood floor (without dragging in machines weighing hundreds of pounds) than anyone reading this right now.
i really wish i had time. i would like to make a video on how to service an either damaged floor or one that might not need a full sanding with my son. this would include either a screening or light sanding with a hand sander and over coating. if i could find a way to do this, i would post it on you tube and would put a link here. servicing floors this way is really easy, so easy even a 14 year old can do it.
andriywww1990 | 4 years and 4 months ago
and that guy that made an attempt at sanding those wood floors should have realized that they are too thin before he brought the sander into your house. be careful with him, there is either a lot he does not know or a lot he knows but for some reason is not telling you.
brokelin | 4 years and 4 months ago
Yes, I was going to say that people often don’t realize it is an option, but hand finishing can work well where the floor won’t stand the big sanding machines. One unit in my building had the floors hand done, and they looked better than any machine-finished floors I’ve ever seen – they were absolutely gorgeous, with a crispness I’ve never seen.(while the rest of the units had floors that were just the usual beautiful.) This was your typical 1890’s oak parquet. Might not be worth it for a whole apartment or house, but for 600 sq. ft. it seems a very reasonable option.
And yes, I’ve also seen patching done to the finishing of these floors in another unit (where the floors near the windows had gotten stripped completely bare when the window trims to floor were stripped of paint) – and the patching of the floor finish could not be distinguished at all – the rest of the floor in the room wasn’t refinished, or even screened, I don’t think. There are people who can do that careful work.
stevecym | 4 years and 4 months ago
Be very careful having inexperienced people sand any large area with hand held power tools. They have the habit of heeling the machines which can leave dishes in the otherwise flat surfaces. When i had my son do that floor i mention above, i was right there being a real annoyance, coaching his every move. The bigger the room, the more risk of seeing this kind of imperfection as light runs across it. Standing right over it, it is hard to spot. People who sand bar tops know what i am talking about.
When i was a child, my father paid some neighborhood youth to sand a hallway in the house i grew up in. I thought it looked really good but for years after my mother complained about it. There were these squiggely lines in it and i now know what caused it, instead of running the sanders straight, these guys shifted them side to side as they move along. These kind of marks are tears in the wood grain and hard to get out. It was really a pretty good job for teenagers and besides, it was the only time in my life that i got to witness belt sander races.
Keep in min d, floor sanding often stops at 100 grit. The reason we dont see swirls is the drum spins in one direction like a belt sander. With the right tools, festool, in the right hands, a floor can be made to look like fine furniture, sanded down to perhaps 150. I would not go to fine as you would lose mechanical bond which is important on something we walk on.
Guest User | 4 years and 4 months ago
Wow you guys are so helpful, thank you! @Doorsby / Steve – screening seems like a good option and I will try to look it up to learn more… yes the contractor probably could have seen that a conventional sanding wasn’t going to be possible… He did a test area and now getting that test area to blend in (if we do keep the floor ) is a new problem we have to deal with.
And @brokelin hand sanding is an interesting idea… we tried a little of that ourselves for fun and it seemed pretty effective.
These ideas are is giving me hope that we won’t have to replace the floor (at least not yet), so yay!
stevecym | 4 years and 4 months ago
Op, you should post a picture. If you dont have scratches into the wood or even if you do have some light scratches into the wood, screening will do a lot.
agdipierro
in General Discussion 4 years and 4 months ago
I recommend contacting Norwegian Wood for a price
andriywww1990 | 4 years and 4 months ago
@OP and Ed: op, ed is correct. if your contractor is not a floor person, he will not know the breadth of options on a floor like this and will not know where he can push limits. if you call someone who makes his or her living doing floors, you will get the truth. they will not jeopardize their reputation attempting something that is questionable.
i have done dozens of floors. small floors, large floors, new floors, mostly with an old style tilt drum sander. they come out beautiful. but this is not what i do for a living, everyday. i have a cousin who is aware of my experience and likes my work (i have worked in his house). his T&G floor is sanded down sort of thin. he knows this. every now and then he mentions having me do it and we kick the risks around a little and then drop it and i do not bring it up again until he does. a real flooring pro might walk in and say it is no problem or a problem or only a problem for the wrong per son. you might want to call a real pro and get an opinion. just because someone who rented a sander (sorry, i am making an assumption here) from home depot says something, it does not mean it is correct.
Arkady | 4 years and 4 months ago
If you want to replace individual pieces you have to have wood that is “quarter sawn” to match the existing. It’ll still look different because of years of color change but the grain will be the same.
brokelin | 4 years and 4 months ago
With all the people pulling out the old oak floors, not just because they may be worn thin (many are still in fine shape), but often because many brownstones are now renovated to look modern (something you didn’t see much of at all 30-40 years ago in brownstone Brooklyn), and many new owners just want something considered more modern, I would think that there’s a growing supply of reclaimed original brownstone flooring to be found somewhere – I’d try finding that, even for the key pieces, before I’d source new wood – the old stuff would probably blend in much better.
Someone on here should know some sources for local reclaimed wood, as should people who specialize in repairing old floors in brownstones.
andriywww1990 | 4 years and 4 months ago
Brokelin, i have pulled used 3/4 tongue and groove out of the trash for patches as i reason it would match better. But i suspect that this thin and worn stuff may really be beat up after removal.
RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 4 years and 4 months ago
AND would be put out for trash collection, so yo’u’d have to work fast
Guest User | 4 years and 4 months ago
[Floor_border](//muut.com/u/brownstoner/s3/:brownstoner:05N7:floor_border.jpg.jpg)
Guest User | 4 years and 4 months ago
[Floor_with_test_area](//muut.com/u/brownstoner/s3/:brownstoner:4XJr:floor_with_test_area.jpg.jpg) [Floor_closeup](//muut.com/u/brownstoner/s3/:brownstoner:0ozd:floor_closeup.jpg.jpg)
Guest User | 4 years and 4 months ago
These are some photos… Good idea with contacting a floor pro, I’ll give them a call.