A Timetable for Refinishing Hardwood Floors

Preparation

• Preparing your rooms for refinishing work involves removing all furniture and accessories. You may also need to remove carpet if you want to refinish the floors beneath. Removing carpet adds time to the project since you must also remove all staples and tack strip nails used to hold the carpet to the floor. Taking the time to tape off all cabinets, doors and windows and plugging heating and air conditioning vents keeps cleanup to a minimum once you finish sanding the floors.

Sanding

• The process of sanding your floors to prepare the wood for its new finish often takes the longest amount of time. Sanding is done to remove the old finish while evening out the floor so it’s flat. The next step in sanding involves smoothing out the scratch marks done during the first round of sanding. A third sanding gives the floor the smooth finish it needs to allow the stain to adhere to the floor. While you may feel tempted to skip some of the sanding stages to save time, sanding the floor using different sized grits helps eliminate scratches left by the previous sanding round and helps your floor look smoother when you apply the finish.

Screening and Polishing

• The last step before applying stain to the floor involves screening and polishing. Screening and polishing may take anywhere from an hour to all day, depending on how many mistakes you find on the floor from the sanding process. A rotary or orbital polisher is used on the floor to look for and correct the mistakes. The process also helps close up the wood’s pores in preparation for the finish. Once you complete the floor screening and polishing, plan on spending some time thoroughly vacuuming the floor to remove all dust and grit.

Finishes

• The final step in refinishing a hardwood floor focuses on applying a stain or floor finish. Stains add and bring out the color of the wood and require 24 to 48 hours to dry. Some homeowners skip the staining process and go right to adding the floor finish while others add a floor finish on top of the stain. Oil-based finishes require four to eight hours to dry before they’re ready for the next coat. Water-based stain takes about four hours to dry before you can walk on the floor or apply the next coat.