Hardwood Floor Value - Install Hardwood Floor - Refinishing Hardwood Floors

Real Estate valuers and property investors will tell you a hardwood floor adds value you to your property. Refinishing or installing hardwood floors is a home renovating project many of us have undertaken. When you have gorgeous unfinished hardwood flooring you want to bring them back to life with a spectacular finish. The key to hardwood floors is preparation. When refinishing hardwood floors the preparation like any work of art is the basis of the project. You have a choice to strip or sand hardwood floors yourself. Sanding is a much more complete and thorough process. You have the option of cherry hardwood flooring, walnut hardwood flooring, oak hardwood floor and bamboo hardwood flooring.

Stripping will most likely leave blemishes that will be brought out by the floor finish you choose. The preferred alternative is to sand hardwood floors yourself to prepare the floorboards for a new finished look. When installing hardwood flooring that is not an engineered wood floor preparation is critical and knowing how to sand hardwood floors yourself is critical.

Before you begin to sand your hardwood floors yourself you need to be prepared with the following tools and supplies. So either head down to your local hardware store or dig through your personal workshop.

What you need

• Hearing protection
• Dust mask
• Safety goggles
• Window exhaust fan
• Plastic drop clothes, used to cover adjacent doorways and block out dust
• Painter's tape, for holding drop cloth in place
• 36, 60 and 80 grit grade sanding disks
• Wood filler
• Orbital floor sander
• Small hand detail sander
• Paint scraper
• Putty knife
• Claw hammer
• Nail punch
• Industrial vacuum cleaner

Warning! Before you start sanding.

• Seal your room from dust COMPLETELY
• Use all your protective gear
• Read all the equipment instructions
• Be even, don’t lean too heavily on the sander to create valleys in the wood
  
  

Step 1

When you set out to sand hardwood floors yourself we must recognize how messy a job it is. I recall doing this and not properly sealing the sanded area and dust getting everywhere in bedrooms way down the hall! Oh what a mess, first thing is seal up the area.

Step 2

Clear out the entire room that you are going to sand hardwood floors yourself, no furniture to be moved while we sand a hardwood floor.

Step 3

Install the window exhaust fan in a window in the room you are sanding. Make sure it has access to a power socket.

Step 4

Take your drop clothes and make sure you cover every point of exit; this means doors, vents and any other openings. Use your painters tape to seal it with no holes.

Step 5

Before you sand a hardwood floor make sure you remove anything that may protrude and damage the disks. Go over the entire floor with your hammer and nail punch hammering any nails that are sticking up above the hardwood floor.

Step 6

Time to begin to sand hardwood floors yourself; make sure you have all your protective gear on. When you sand a hardwood floor you need goggles, face mask and eye protectors. Start with your heaviest graded grit first. Attach your 36 grit graded abrasive disks on the floor sander. Slowly work the sander evenly back and forth around the entire room.

Step 7

After you have covered the floor evenly now resand the entire hardwood floor with the floor sander angled at 45 degrees.

Step 8

Go over the floor with your industrial vacuum cleaner collecting all the dust and grit

Step 9

Go over the floor boards and batch any nail holes or cracks you find. At the same time take your smaller detail sander and remove any of the old finish that the larger sander couldn’t get.

Step 10

Next you are going to sand hardwood floors yourself with the 60 grade grit abrasive disc on the floor sander over the entire floor. Use the detail sander again with the 60 grade grit disc to get the areas missed.

Step 11

We have one more go over the entire floor with the 80 grade grit abrasive disc s to sand hardwood floors yourself. Use the detail sander again with the 80 grade grit disc to get the areas missed

Step 12

Go over the floor with your industrial vacuum cleaner collecting all the dust and grit, once completely clean take all your plastic drops down. That is how you sand hardwood floors yourself. You have now prepared the floor for finishing and brining out all the beautiful aspects of your hardwood floor. Refinishing hardwood floors done right means sanding to perfection  before you install a hardwood floor.