Refinishing hardwood flooring can be easy once you know how. It is not expensive and you do not have to spend hours sanding if you do not want to. There are other methods of doing it which keep the character of the flooring so try and research more if that appeals to you.

Refinishing hardwood flooring can be costly and time consuming but it is something that needs to be done. There are various stages which you need to complete when refinishing a hardwood floor and generally you need to know what you are doing before you can attempt any of them.

How to Successful Refinish a Hardwood Floor

Sanding is often one of the main things which people do when they refinish their hardwood floors. However, if you did a little research you would find that sanding destroys the character of the floor. Also if you think about it logically, when you sand down the hardwood flooring you are losing some of the wood as it chips off. This in turn means that the floor becomes thinner. Another disadvantage includes the fact that sanding can make a potentially big mess and the sand which comes off the flooring can make it hard to finish it off smoothly.

So you really should avoid sanding at all costs if you really want to look after your floor, but what other alternatives are there? Well there are some which are equally cost effective, which do not make a mess and which are incredibly simple to do!

The first thing that you need to do is make as many repairs to the floor as you need to. Over time hardwood flooring can chip and so you may need to either repair it or replace parts of it completely. If you do need to replace some of the flooring always ensure that you get the exact same one if possible or take along a sample of the flooring you are replacing and try and find the closest matching flooring to it. That way it will not look odd when you put it down. It might sound obvious but some people have put down the completely wrong color flooring and it has looked completely out of place and been a complete waste of money too.

Once you have replaced the ruined wood, the next step is to chemically refurnish the old floor using a mild Trisodium Phosphate. Be careful not to go over the new flooring as it does not need to be treated. Once it is all covered you will have to leave it for a day and then you will need to use a wax remover, again only on the older sections of wood and then leave again for another few days.

Overall it takes time to properly refinish hardwood flooring but it can be done and once you know how it is quite easy to do. Just ensure that you know what materials you need and get everything in before you start.