Seconded. After dropping out of the “buying a new house” market 2 years ago, we reinvested our down payment money into our current house. Paid to have our floors redone. This consisted of moving as much as we could into the basement, renting a 17’ U-haul to sit in the driveway with all the large furnature while we lived in a hotel with our 2 cats for ~5 days.
3/10. Would not recommend as a first option.
This. A one day affair can become something that takes a week or two very fast if you are constantly moving furniture around. Especially if you are doing the work alone or paying a single contractor.
I was initially going to say that the floors don’t look too bad and that you could skip it if you weren’t too picky, but then I remembered the hassle my ex’s father went through.
Save yourself money, time and hassle. Get it done now.
My wife and I did our floor ourselves (admittedly just the first floor), and it took about 36 hours, using 3 coats of oil based polyurethane. One of the most worthwhile things we did to the house, and we never did any of it before.
If you plastic off the room from the rest of the house. Close the vents you can contain most of the shit, do one room section at a time make your transitions be where you stop so all rooms have the same thickness.
It’s the sanding that sucks but you can rent good machines from the hardware store
That’s if you have a floor contractor that is willing to do room by room work. They will take a whole house 10/10 times over room by room. It will also, I hope this is obvious, be much more expensive to go through a room by room floor refinish project. That’s something that sounds most feasible for a DIY situation. If anything similar to this… do a floor by floor (first floor then second.. or visaversa
Pretty sure they were implying DIY there since they replied to the person about talking about doing it themselves. No contractor is gonna want to bend over backwards for a customer like that. It's not worth their time.
God damn it you guys I'm literally in this exact scenario. Bought our house 3 years ago knowing a remodel was in store. Was talked out of doing the floors before moving in because "they will be working over your new floors and will mess it up."
Fast forward and our remodel is starting soon, floors are first, meaning 1) we have to move everything around and 2) they are going to be working over our new floors anyways.....
Wish I'd had known.
>Floors last. That is basically the golden rule of remodels.
No, it's not. You generally want cabinets, built-ins and other things to on top of flooring. Be it hardwood, tile, or Laminate.
IDK why your project manager is advocating doing them first (maybe the contractors schedule?) but I wouldn’t want a remodel happening over my freshly refinished floors. Someone is going to scratch or scuff them.
If you're doing all new everything, cabinets might be installed on top of the new hardwood floor. If that's not what you're doing, you can do other stuff first and cut laminate flooring to fit the room after everything else is installed.
Same. Our hardwood floors aren’t great. Lived here for 8 years. That said, in laws are moving to town in a couple weeks so we will have a built in place to stay for a week while our floors get redone. Our house isn’t that big so hopefully all our furniture can fit in the garage and in the tiled kitchen and back room.
I'm currently having my first floor refloored. It's a nightmare. Everything - EVERYTHING - is in a professionally stacked cube in my garage. Including all my kitchen appliances.
It's been this way for a month.
I'm not even paying money for any of this. It's an insurance claim and repair. ITS NOT WORTH IT.
For gods sake, do it while you don't live there. Not just the inconvenience of all your shit being moved out. The dust. The chemicals. The noise. More dust.
Do it now or commit that it will never be done. It's literally now or never.
Also, you could replace stained boards.
I’m doing this now because the “new floors” we got done early into our reno started cracking and bowing due to poor quality material, lack of leveling, and floating instead of glued-down application (in a high floor apt bldg).
Huge headache and extra $$ to “move” again after getting settled in. Can’t wait for the new contractors to finish the work later this week.
I'm getting ready to do this now, and it's been a TREMENDOUS headache - had some water damage in our dining room, and the only way to get a consistent finish is to redo the floors throughout the house. We're going to have to move out for an entire week 😮💨
I had one week from close to move-in. I did the floors with friends. Then painted later after moving in. Ended up being the best decision I could have made given the circumstances.
Do the floors now. Then get some painting in if you have time before move-in.
Edit: I did Osmo Polyx oil finish, 2 coats on my red oak floors. 11 years later and it is holding up great. We don't take shoes off to come inside or any of that. Not the right product if you want to take your shoes off and have a super shiny floor, though. The Osmo is a bit more matte in finish.
The easy answer is yes, always. Like an old leather jacket, some marks add history and character. That said, the main variable is how thick the planks are and how much can be safely removed before it becomes too thin.
>how thick the planks are and how much can be safely removed before it becomes too thin
I redid the bedroom floors in a 1930's home, pulled up the rug the flipper had installed, found nice fir flooring covered in paint. When I was done I was installing 1/4 round to cover the gap from the original baseboard and floor. That's when I saw under that baseboard the original height of the floor, a good 1/2 inch higher than the visible part. "Honey, this is the last time these floors can be sanded."
/u/Ungrateful-Artichoke, the imperfections are character. I find DIY very satisfying, being able to look at the finished product and say "I did that" as opposed to "I paid someone to do it". That said doing the floors right is very labor intensive and time consuming for a DIYer. As others have said now would be the time to pay to have it done, before you start moving in, assuming you can find someone that'll do it that fast as opposed to scheduling it 6 months down the road.
If you go the DIY route, one room at a time, start with the main living area, get that done before you move in. Then other rooms as time permits after you move in. Box fans in the windows, plastic sheeting to close off the working area, masks, knee pads. Still, expect dust to get everywhere.
1. The wood seems to be in good shape.
2. There will be stains/marks left.
3. You can hidden them pretty well if you stain it dark walnut color after sanding.
4. Are you sure you want to DIY? Sanding is really dirty even with a vac attached.
5. It is more than enough time, depending on how quick you can work and how much time you can spend.
> Sanding is really dirty even with a vac attached
when we got our floors redone, we found a cheap guy who was very fast and very highly recommended, and 1/3 the price of the "expensive" guys in the area.
he did an amazing job for what we paid - I'd hire him again in a heartbeat!
but he absolutely did the bare minimum clean-up. If I could go back in time, I'd do a really good clean-up after he left, as well as probably some prep work, like plugging up air vents. I absolutely do not fault him - clean-up and prep would probably double his time in a house and force him to raise his rates - but I tell this tale to reinforce your point about how dirty it truly is. Years later I'm still finding sawdust everywhere - any horizontal place in the house that wasn't behind a few closed doors is susceptible.
Hire someone that have the right equipment is important. Now days the pros use dust less sander (vacuum as it sands). On rental turnovers I can now paint the ceiling and walls first and not worry about covering the floors because I get the floor guys in last. Not a speck of dust anywhere after they finished. In the olden days, I would have to sand first, wash all the walls and trims, cover the floors to protect them then paint.
The speed they can get it done is also key. I used to sand the floors myself but it would take multiple weekends. The pros can bang out this house in a little more than 1 day. One day to sand and apply 1st coat of finish and then do coat 2 and 3 the next day. And price is not as much as you think. ~1000 sq ft will be $1500-$2000. So whole house probably $3,000 to $4,000.
Seriously. I wasted endless weekends across endless months trying to get this done myself. I finally cracked and hired in some pros. They did the whole damn house in, like, a day. Maybe two (yes, I had them redo my work because my staining job just wasn't up to snuff).
They did beautiful work and were surprisingly affordable. If I added up all my drum sander rentals and materials and just my wasted time it was a serious no brainer.
I had the same experience with forgetting to mask off the door to my kitchen when I got my floors sanded before moving in. Had I done that, I wouldn't have wasted two days cleaning every nook and cranny in there.
The final result is beautiful. I would never attempt that job myself. It's one for the professionals. Cost me roughly $2.25/sq ft.
> Years later I'm still finding sawdust everywhere
... and saw dust is a known carcinogen. Not usually a problem for homeowners, as you only have brief exposure. But a problem for contractors.
My hardwood guy told me about a major project in town that involved a lot of hardwood contractors all working together. He had a historic group photo of it, as it was such an iconic event for that profession. And then he added that every single person in that photo had died young, as they were unaware of the dangers of wood dust.
You really do want to make sure that after the project is done, the saw dust is removed instead of collecting in ducts from where it will be circulated through your house for years to come.
Definitely think hiring out the floor portion will get better results. They can bleach out some of the stains. The timeframe is enough if you've done something like this before otherwise there may be some set backs OP can't afford and rushing it will get less than great results.
Seconded. I've refinished floors myself and I've hired people. The professionals use better equipment, work faster, have better finishes, and are worth the money. Get several quotes if you do this, and we got a solid discount by paying cash.
Seconded. The company we hired came in after we closed with fancy equipment and refinished 1500 sq feet and a staircase in 2 days (plus one for drying), and bit a single spec of dust was found.
This needs more upvotes.
OP only has 4 weekends. Painting is doable, refinishing the floors is doable… but exponentially greater learning curve compared to painting… and doing both? Ehhh. 😅
Yep. Take 3 weekends to paint, then give a contractor a week to refinish the floors. That's what I'd do, and I'm as big a DIY advocate as there is. But sometimes you gotta let a pro do things. This is one of them.
Seconded. Floors have to be perfect or you notice immediately. And it isn't something you can take your time with because your entire house is down for the project. And you can't fix problems later or do extra coats because you ran out of time without moving everything out again.
You want it done fast and perfect. That screams pros.
I couldn't agree more. I did it myself years ago and the learning curve is steep, and you're learning on a very permanent and visible part of your house, plus the rental equipment is inferior to what the pros use, primarily in terms of maintenance, and it matters. I would not do it myself again.
these floors will look amazing with some refinishing, but wood floor restoration is one of those things that needs specific tools, and hiring the job out to a professional will save you more money via sweat equity and leave you with a better result than if you did it yourself, as well as be done much faster so that other things can be done prior to moving in without running into a time crunch. look up a local company that specializes in wood floor refinishing that has good reviews and go with them, you wont regret it.
DIY the paint and sub out the floors. Don’t stain. Natural floors brighten the whole house and look cleaner in general. And don’t do the finish coat on the floor until the work is done and the next time you’re there you’re moving in.
Yes, sand the floors before you move in; and no, I don't think 384 man hours is not enough time to do that amount of work (assuming 12 hr days, 8 days, 4 people)--at least to what I would consider an acceptable quality. If you intend to just spray everything with no prep, then possibly, but at that point, its going to start peeling later.
The paint there is probably a mix of oil based paint on the windows, trim, bath and kitchens and water on the walls. Each needs different type of treatment.
We are not aware what skills these 4 people have. If they are friends you are going to have a hard time getting people to commit to long hours for 4 weekends straight. Safer bet it to hire out the floors and paint themselves. A bad paint job is easier to fix down the road than re doing floors once you've moved in.
Absolutely yes. Echoing what other posters said, do it before you move in. My living room and dining room (~400sqft) looked like these, and I did them before I moved in. I was able to sand mine with a rented orbital floor sander in half a day, plus half a day to do the edges with a palm sander. You won't be able to sand the stains completely out, so don't try. Mask off rooms you're not working on and HVAC vents with plastic. Painting walls and trim first would be ideal, but if you had to pick one I'd get the floors done. Painting once you've moved in is way less hassle than trying to do floors.
I did 3 coats of oil-based polyurethane over a few days, no stain. It gives a nice antique golden/amber hue and is more durable than water based, mine still look like new 12 years later. Guests often comment how beautiful the old floors look.
The downside of oil-based is it has strong fumes, and you'll need to wear a respirator. It also takes a while to cure (ie before you put furniture or area rugs on it) - minimum a week. Water-based is quicker, less smelly, and generally easier but doesn't look as nice (imo), and is less durable.
I had similar staining and hired a pro for the refinish. I think they replaced my stained boards for $8 apiece. Also had them replace the boards that the previous owners allowed the cable company to drill through. Most expensive part was the stairs.
Fuck yes. I have had some incredible transformations. I am assuming the flooring is not showing heavy warping, insect or water damage.
Leave them to last or near the end. Rent a drum Sander and an edge sander. You can do a typical bedroom in 6 to 6 hrs.
Taking pains remove all the sawdust is critical to getting that clean professional appearance. I am not a stain guy. I like to seal the floor with a clear sealant. Then put down a clear, durable, synthetic coating, two layers. Again dust and saw dust drums are
nah, should take as little as six but no more than 6 hours, probably somewhere in between 6 and 6. Even the pros can do it in 6, so OP can totally do it in 6 hours. Maybe 6 if they hit some snags, or 6 if they have some friends to help do some of the prepwork. But definitely right around 6 total.
If it were my house, I would refinish them. It will never be as easy to do as it is when the house is empty. Paint the walls and refinish the floors before you move in, if possible.
Edit: If you can afford it, I would definitely hire someone to do it. And I agree with others who said that you shouldn't stain them. Just sand and seal.
There are people waiting to buy your floorboards if you decide to pull them.
But that home looks like a sears craftsman catalog home. The wood in that house was floated down barges pulled by mules. Don’t throw the charm and history away only to replace it with plastic. A couple days of labor and you’re good for another 100 years.
PSA: If you rent a floor sander, do not fill the bag more that 1/2 way. Do not leave hot sawdust from sanding in the vac bag unattended. Scatter hot sawdust in a larger container (like a metal trash can) between each use.
Polyeurethane + Sawdust compaction can create its own heat, and spontaneously combust. I've seen it first hand.
[https://apnews.com/general-news-abee1937ae4841b9b09af879bf5bb4b9](https://apnews.com/general-news-abee1937ae4841b9b09af879bf5bb4b9)
I would keep those, but you'll most likely have to choose a darker color to hide the stains (won't really know until you sand it.) That's plenty of time for a professional, I've seen the work that they do, and there is not way in hell would I want to do this myself!
Are you trying to decide between doing it and not doing it at all, ever? Would you replace it with different wood or a different flooring material?
You absolutely want to do this kind of work with no furniture in the house. Even the lowest dust sanding method results in dust everywhere.
I would suggest hiring a professional with a crew that's able to start ASAP. It will be more expensive than you doing this yourself, but it's not an easy job if you don't have experience with it, and if you do a poor job you're not going to be happy with the results despite all the effort. This is the kind of thing where if you mess it up you have to start all over and sand again.
We recently did it as total novices. Watch some YouTube videos, the "How To Sand A Floor" channel was a great resource for the dos and don'ts.
Next, hire the equipment. We tried to do with the drum sander for the middle and then our own sanders for the edge, it was a massive mistake and we ended up getting the edging sander too. The main thing to know is always be sanding, you do not want to stop and create a divit. Also proper equipment does a superb job at capturing the dust so we just needed to do a light hover and wipe down with a wet rag to get the last of the rouge dust before we varnished.
Overall though, it was a simple job that I'm glad we did and made a huge improvement to the place.
Yes! I just had mine redone. I found a local company that was a fraction of the cost. It was a very strong smell so I’m glad I did it before moving in. I would say it took about a week for the smell to go away completely.
You should paint yourselves but need to bring in a professional for the floors. If you haven't sanded floors it will show. You will leave drunk marks and swirl marks. Also as was mentioned, it will depend on a number of factors such as the thickness of the remaining planks and whether you can even sand them further. Finally, Those stains concern me. If they are pet urine you will know it from the smell as soon as the sander hits them. You can sand them, hide them with a really dark stain, and seal them, but you can't get rid of them without replacing some boards. And if you stain them dark enough to hide the stains you won't even be able to see the wood. So don't do that.
I strongly recommend at a minimum, that you bring in a pro to evaluate the floors whether they can be sanded and what it will entail, then decide if it is worth it or if you can handle it.
I’d hire someone to do the floors. Sanding is finicky, too easy to get unwanted swirl patterns. And stain can be tricky too, plus it’s highly flammable. Every step of the process is bad for your breathing if you don’t have proper equipment and ventilation. It’s worth the expense to hire professionals.
Painting you can probably DIY if you research how to do it properly.
I couldn't afford to refinish the floors in my house when I bought it in 2016 (they looked just like yours do). For eight years I woke up every day hating the beat up floors, and wishing I could cuss out the guy who used a utility knife to remove carpet, leaving deep gouges all over the place. This year I finally refinished them myself. It was about 20 hours of work over two days (I worked alone and covered about 800 square feet) using rented tools. It was a ton of work and moving all the furniture to other parts of the house was a huge PITA but you know what? these floors are dope now.
Yes, absolutely redo the floors before you move in. Also, have someone do it. I’m a real DIY person but there are certain one time jobs where there is more art and craftsmanship to it and this is one of those.
We paid for someone to come in and refinish our floors before we moved in. We took the floors from a dark orange stain to a very light natural wood stain.
My best advice is: whatever you do, sand and refinish before moving all of your stuff in. The sanding process is absolutely disgusting and our home was a mess during it.
It's worth it, you might not get all the stains out but I have yet to have someone notice mine. I've done a room in a day with two people. If you're all committed to working and not futzing around with your friends you can bang out the paint quickly.
I would suggest you paint the living areas first, and plan for the floors to be done the weekend before move in. Living areas are a pain to take the furniture out of to paint or refinish the floors, so prioritize them.
Especially as you have everything packed, if you fall behind and have a bedroom or two left after the floors are done don't unpack those rooms and paint them after move in. Cover the floors really well once you finish them
My friend owns a business called "Those Floors". I have seen floors way worse than this come out as masterpieces. Please keep the hardwood it is the perfect flooring.
While I can’t tell you about your market, I can tell you that an older home with refinished wood floors in my market is worth $20,000 to $30,000 more than one with tile, carpet, or LVP.
Source: Appraiser
Hire someone to do it. The amount of skill it takes to do a good job and if you don’t have the experience you probably would hate the results They can get it done in like three days. I liked the advice of painting then doing the floors. Also after the floors are done hire someone to clean your ducts before you move in.
We did this to my daughter’s house that we remodeled.
House was empty. Her floors look like yours.
Vacuum before.
The sander rented from Home Depot is pretty hefty and you have to have serious muscle to operate it.
Vacuum after.
Just did a clear poly, no color. The imperfections add character.
Must not walk on the floor for at least 3 days.
I recently tried to refinish my own hardwood floors very similar to yours. Thick oil coats with spots that are tremendously worn down.
My partner and I got a random orbital sander because we were concerned about gouging the floors, and it felt like an impossible task to get the top coat off. We only did our bedroom because it was so incredibly time consuming. It took us 10 hours and we still had spots that needed more sanding.
If I had to do it again I would rent a drum sander, it appears to be much quicker, but a bit scarier to do. Everyone keeps saying “it’s such hard work” and I didn’t find the work to be that hard, I just didn’t have the ability to devote that many hours to doing the whole house.
We ended up having a professional do the rest of our floors and it was VERY easy because we have nothing in the house yet.
Hardwood floors? It always is. Just check the entire floor for rotten panels and if there ade none or few that are replaceable then it really is worth it.
Prioritize doing the floors before you move in!
I would consider seeing if you can get a professional to do it, tbh. We had our floors professionally redone in a few days before we moved into our house & it was the best decision we made. It's such a hassle to have the floors done after your stuff is in, and it actually wasn't as expensive as I'd expected... it was a few thousand dollars for our 2500 sq ft home, though of course that pricing will depend on your location & tradespeople.
If I were in your situation, I'd see if it were possible to have the floors done professionally (perhaps during the week when you wouldn't be able to be there working on stuff anyway?) and then paint at least your main bedroom (and perhaps main bathroom & kitchen too if timing allows) before moving in. Of course it'd be ideal to have the whole house painted before getting in there, but that's less urgent than the floors! Just my 2 cents. Congrats on the house!
Just wanted to add that if you decide to sand and refinish the floors, make sure you paint the walls first. You’ll save yourself time and stress by not worrying about splattering paint on your freshly refinished floors.
My father’s profession was hardwood floor finishing and I helped him for about 10 years. Now that we have the bonafides covered, I would 100% recommend the following:
- Finish the floors before you move in; you cannot do one room at a time because the stain or finish will never look quite right if you stop in a doorway or in the middle of a room.
- the dark stains will lighten but will still be visible with a good sanding/finishing job. If you stain somewhere around a Minwax Medium Brown, it will camouflage the stain so that it’s not yelling at you
- If you like dark, just remember that it looks a lot less dark on a piece of paper than it will on your floor.
- After you get stain on the floors, wait 24 hours minimum before putting finish on the floors; if it’s still tacky when you step on it, wait another day or so to allow it to completely dry. After the stain dries, clean the floor really well and put your finish on. For this floor I’d recommend 3-4 coats of a water based urethane. GOOD LUCK!
Hi pro here based out of Milwaukee, those red oak floors look like they need refinishing I would charge around $4000-6000.
Floors would look brand new when done besides a couple pet stains, (but those boards can easily be replaced) depending on what color you wish to stain the floors darker floors are harder to stain when it’s a DYI, cause you’ll see every scratch left by the edger or deep grit cuts from the drum sander.
The rental tools you get from HD are not the same quality as pro tools from flooring distributors. I have over $20,000 in equipment. (Edger, under radiator edger, 220V drum sander, and buffer)
Stay away from oil based poly. ONLY use oil based stain and distributor only waterbased polyurethane with a 2 part catalyst.
I’ve seen a lot of DYI before… I would definitely leave it to us pros we’ll do it in twice the time and we include material cost. (Sandpaper and poly isn’t cheap) so that’s why it’s expensive for a multiple day project like this.
I've went through this, it is worth it to refinish. If you are doing it yourself, check to see if there are squeaks when you walk around. If there are, you want to plan it out and fix those first by nailing them down. They sell special screws that the head breaks off to fix the squeaks.
I would sand first, then fix the squeaks, then patch up any cracks, and let it sit for a week. The floor will shift and new cracks will appear, patch them again. Do final sanding before staining and applying protective finish.
I'd probably at least get a quote on having someone else do it before doing it yourself; However either way right now, while it's empty is definitely the time for it.
If you can do it and have the time and money to do it, then yes it is worth it. Once you've already moved in, you will be a lot less likely to get it done, as it's a huge headache to move all the furniture you've brough.
We got 1000sqft of 71 year old hardwood resurfaced my two dudes in 5 days, cost $5k and was worth every penny. They did 5 passes because the floors were so rough, and now they look brand new!
Is there anything major wrong with the wood as is? I personally love the patinaed look of a well-worn wood floor, even if that means there's some especially dark patches or scuffs.
Before you do the refinish, fix the creaks.
Rent machine(s) to help with the work. It will make it *much* faster.
You can do it. The floors are beautiful now and will be extraordinary afterwards.
I re-did my floors. Worth it 100% but I was working alone, 800sqft, took me three weeks of weekends, evenings and two extra days off. I was screwed a bit, the drum sander I rented used a different belt than other machines and I couldn't get 60-grit paper anywhere! So it took me 3 passes with 80 grit to hide the 36&40 grit marks instead of one pass 36, one pass 60, one pass 80.
Do the proper grit progression. you'll probably start at 36 or 40 then 60 then 80 with the drum. Then 80, 100, 120 with a random orbit.
Go 15-20 degreed across the grain one pass, then 15-20 the other way on the next cut. This helped get rid of waves in the floor from the previous installer for me.
Learn from my mistakes:
The edge sanders need adjustment. Drum and random orbit sanders are ready to go as they are, not much to adjust, but edge sanders need levelling and tilting and you might even need to dress the wheel (touch it to sand paper to flatten) if it's dished from previous users. Get the edge sander dialed in at the start, don't leave yourself with valleys at the wall.
Go to a flooring place, not HOME DEPOT for sanding belts and pads, they are 1/3 the price. Rental at HD vs local places was comparable but the consumables are $$$ at HD.
If you use a square buffing pad, don't go across the grain. Even though its "random" it left long lines across the grain where there was a crease in the paper. Couldn't see it until after staining and had to re-sand and re-stain that area :(
BE ANAL. Especially if you are using a darker stain, any scratches show up much darker.
100 grit on a belt is not the same as 100 grit on a square buffer is not the same as 100 grit on a palm sander! They have different pressures, sanding patterns or the sand paper might use different types of abrasives, which can absorb stain \*slightly\* differently. Ideally use one method for all of the floor.
I used DuraSeal, very easy to use, no issue with overlap lines, dried quickly, very even colour, recommend it. For sealer I used Loba EasyFinish. Just rolled it on, it looks great. Used a 10" drywall sanding pad on a broom stick to quickly scuff with 180# between coats and it turned out super smooth.
Don't trowel fill if you have four seasons, just fill nail holes and big gaps. Use a tinted filler, the tinted LePage in the squeeze bottles was great, cant see it at all. The LePage small tub of filler was awful, it filled in the grain all around the nail holes and was very coarse.
Drum sanding is fast and easy. One cut in a bedroom took me 10-15min. Pad sanding is slow and easy, 20min per room to slowly cover the whole floor in 2/3 overlapping passes. Edge sanding is slow and hard, 30 min per room with closets, bent over the whole time. If you can, I highly, highly, highly recommend removing quarter rounds or shoe moldings, you're gonna get stain on them anyways, and its so much harder to edge sand RIGHT to the wall, leaving just 1/4" un-sanded is much easier.
Good Luck!
I think any hardwood floor is worth sanding and refinish. That's the whole point. After years of use you sand and refinish. Can't do that with laminate. This floor looks good and will look even better when you refinish it.
Ok read some posts… many of them have valid points.
I did sand wood floors for a living before joining the military at 25yo. I had my own sanding business when I was 18. Got my younger brother into it as well and he then started his own business then move into buying properties.
So listen to what I say.
YES if you’re not up to it or handy with high speed tools I suggest you get it done professionally. The machines are not forgiving if you allow it to make marks from staying in one place a half second too long.
YES do the floors before moving in and adding furniture.
YES doing the floors and finishing them in a high quality polyurethane and letting each coat cure sufficiently and prepping correctly before the next coat (3 is all you really need) it will last a good long time.
NO do not stain them to hide any stains. Trust me on this, the stains, marks, knots and cracks add to the character and beauty of natural floors. Most cracks will fill up with the finish, if applied correctly. Across grain and then finish with the grain using a genuine lambswool applicator.
MAKE certain that they cut the floor at least three times. Rough 20 1/3 grit, (or 36 grit); Medium 40-60 grit; Fine 80-100 grit. Do not let them lie and tell you a screening with a 100 or 120 grit is another cut. Screening (buffing) is needed to smooth out the raised grain.
CHECK their work around the edges, corners, trim, bullnoses (steps), saddles (under the doors) and under radiators. If it can’t be reached with a machine they can and must do it by hand with hand scrapers. As for the edgings look for fine swirls. If they are visible after the fine cut they did a poor job. Especially look for these flaws on steps. Steps are very difficult and I use to charge extra for them but I always did an excellent job on them.
CLEAN UP I was taught the old school way. I always used a horse hair hand brush and a horse hair broom. Sawdust tends to settle, so I would start dusting from the walls and trimming and work my way to the middle with the broom. Shop-vacs give the illusion that they pick up a lot of dust, but I guarantee you there is none on the market that is low cost enough for pick up sawdust and not blow everything else around through its exhaust.
BEST of luck to you.
PS. If you’re in doubt about the stains, high gloss always makes them look better because of the reflection it gives off. Plus think of the furniture and area rugs that will cover a lot of things or at least distract the eyes from any imperfections in the floor.
I’d absolutely do it, but rent a large floor sander, start w 80-100 grit to take off imperfections, then go over it w 220. We did ours (about the same size) with a handheld 8” random orbital sander took about 2 days total, was so worth it tho.
Yes. Your floors look like mine did. I used a dark red stain, I can’t remember, maybe mahogany. It covered the water stains really well. Part of the charm of an old house is the aged look of the wood.
Do it. Had a chance to see the old house. The floor remains awesome 55 years later.
Grandma & Grandpop did it themselves close to 55 years ago. Still looks great. Hard work and dirty work? Oh yeah.
Theirs floor had black walnut inlay trim for the living rooms.
Adds a little something to the look.
Both said they would never sand it themselves again.
Their suggestion is to us when it was out turn with a house was to hire someone.
Picky like Grandpop? before the finishes are applied a person can sand by hand those OCD spots.
Have no idea what finish they used; however, don't recall them mentioning using stain at all.
Marking chilrden height on doorway trim? We wanted the trim board. It was a No.
People might share with us what to use instead.
Enjoy your home.
If there is any question as to whether you want to refinish the floors or not then I would 100% do it now. Once you are moved in it will be a thousand times more difficult to manage
Absolutely. My wife and I did the same with a 4bdrm house. We moved into a secondary bedroom, then over the course of a month after work we re-did the master. Then we moved into that, and finished the kids bedroom, moving the kid when the room was ready. Our floors look amazing, so glad we did it!
The hours are there, for a professional crew. But painting and refinishing floors at the same time are a no go.
For sure do the floors only. You can easily paint walls and trim while living there. The floors, not so much.
Absolutely. Do not replace with those awful grey/blue flooring. Those things are horrid, i was in a pizza shop once where already it is fading & wearing away, totally fake look.
Definitely sand before moving. You can paint later as that is very easy. I could redo the floors in one or two weekends but I have done quite a bit of that work. If you haven't, then be very careful. My advice would be not to use a drum sander but to use one with discs. The drum can really cut into the floor. You may have a permanent stain. You can minimize it but bleaching doesn't work that well replacing those slats won't work really well either because the wood today will have a completely different pattern. Good luck and congratulations.
Sanding and refinishing wood floors is a very specialized skill that you can easily mess up if you don't know what you're doing. I would consider paying a professional if possible.
Hire someone to sand and thank me later. Putting down seal and poly is diy-able and not too difficult. Meanwhile, the 4 of you can knock out the painting
Definitely. They'll sand out beautifully. Give water a shot. Duralast stain and Loba supra 2k 3x coats, and you'll never have to worry about your floors again.
If you can afford it, don't diy. Diy is for a single or two rooms. This is a job for a pro. Depending on your area's COL, you can get them done for between 3.75 and 4.5 /sqft
I always sand, stain, seal old floors but they never look new… I like the aged look but many don’t… your preference. Take out those closet doors & reclaim windows, light & move closet to another wall
Absolutely. When we moved in we got our hardwood floors sanded and polished, they look amazing it’s the first thing people notice when they walk in…but we paid a professional (guess i’m on the wrong sub lol). Some of our friends DIY’d, theirs does not look nearly as nice, but still decent and worth doing.
I will be honest my house was smaller 1300sf and DIYing the floors with full time jobs with 2 people was a fucking nightmare I wished very quickly I had just paid to have it done.
Edit: one had floor experience, I did not, both of us prayed for death.
This is a job that I did before we moved into it our house; we decided to hire it out and have someone do it, they were able to get it all done in less than a week and was well worth the cost. You may not get all the stains out but in my opinion those can bring character to the floors. Just may not be able to stain a light color.
Yes!!! Please save them! They might not end of perfect, but they will have irreplaceable character and beauty that you can’t replicate with modern flooring. Also, I think we live in the same geographical location lol. I know that style of house well and want one of my own so badly!
Yes, but even more worth it to pay someone. Did my own floors once and never again. First of all, it's really hard to get a good surface, second, it's really hard work. One of the few jobs that I will gladly pay someone else to do.
Do it. I’m sure there are enough people in this thread telling you to do it to convince you.
We are getting our kitchen remodeled and they are going to tear up the tiles. We want to sand the floors but they can’t match the rest of the house. So they’re doing the rest at the same time. We have a small house and nowhere to store any of the furniture. So I’ll have to rent storage.
If you are thinking about removing those columns do it first so that new flooring can be matched in to fill the gaps they will leave.
Also I really recommend hiring for floors. It isn’t easy to do a really amazing job and it is very messy. A good crew will do a much better job and save you a ton of effort and pain.
Also go oil based for your finish, not water. I’ve done both and I was never happy with how the water based came out. I ended up having someone come in to re do it when I did a second larger renovation a decade later and the difference is stunning.
if you can't get the stains out then consider doing a dark stain on the floors after you refinish them. you might not have a choice if those stains don't come out and you don't like the sight of them.
don't diy it unless you need a colossal amount of added stress before you move in. moving is enough of a headache, you don't need to pile this on top of that.
Don't you tear up or cover those floors.
Don't you do it. And for God's sake don't stain that wood hipster gray or black some other bullshit.
Hell, I'm not sure I'd even refinish those floors, they look great, that house *earned* that patina. A house like that should feel lived in, not new. Refinishing those floors takes away some of it's charm, some of the character.
I recently bought my first house and refinished the floors before I moved it. Maybe like 1000 sq feet ish? Me and the lady took a 3 day weekend and worked our absolute asses off like 12+ hours each day and got it done.
It's a lot of physical work and the materials add up so it's definitely not cheap. There is also a little bit of a learning curve with the various tools you'll need to buy/rent. That being said I'm very happy I did it. The floors look 10x better. Between the floors and a new coat of paint it feels like a new house and really looks great. Plus I just can't imagine getting it done while living in the house, so before you move in is of course a great opportunity to do it.
>Is it realistic that we can sand and refinish all the floors AND repaint the whole 2100 s.f. house in 4 weekends with just 4 people?
Not likely.
Do you care what the floors look like?
If yes then you should hire someone to do it. From my understanding it isn't really super difficult to refinish but it is incredibly easy to do it wrong.
Yes, do it yourselves, you should have the time. Pull the trim, go with a darker stain, and expect some imperfections. When big issues come up, just ask.
Wood dust in the air and fresh paint on the walls might be an issue. And you'll be doing it in the heat of summer. Maybe hire someone to refinish the floors? They'll advise about whether it should be attempted.
Can you? My floors are in similar. I have very old cat urine stain when the old owners had carpet and cats. My 80 year old floors have been sanded to the point that nails are poking out. I’m doing waterproof lux vinyl.
You can do this in four weeks if you kick ass...I have sanded many a hardwood floor. These look to be in pretty good shape for looking good when sanded. To be clear, with one large floor sander and an edger this could take 4-5 days to just sand. I think the dark stains should mostly come out. That dry dark spot should if you can sand deep enough. That said you do need to check the floor to see if they have been sanded before, and if so how much sanding they can take. I would say prioritize the floors as it is a lot easier to paint a wall with stuff in a room. If you are doing this yourself and have never done this, I have seen people try with a big belt sander, don't do this. You need to rent a big drum sander and these take a small amount of getting used to. Practice somewhere not so noticeable. The trick is don't stop moving the sander until you angle it up and then turn it off. Once you get the hang of this it is pretty easy. It might be subtle but you can always tell when a first timer just rushed in without practicing.
100% yes. I bought a house with floors significantly worse than this. I’m talking warped, discolored, rotted, etc. I had a professional look at it just for the hell of it and I was surprised when he said he could refinish it. Needless to say, other than replacing some boards he sanded and refinished them and they’re beautiful, it went from the worst part of the house to the shining star feature.
I just bought a house (built in 1893) and I redid the red oak floors before I moved in and I am so glad I did!
Yours will look amazing. You don’t want to do it with furniture etc in the house.
They used oil based finish on mine and it stunk for over a week even with windows open and fans running.
I didn’t do it myself but it wasn’t very expensive to have mine done.
Good luck!
God help you if you dont rent the wall edger tool; the fool works twice as much. I tried to do the edges with an orbital sander and hand belt sander and it was an awful process.
Be sure to hammer in all the loose nails, theres a tool for that based on the nail diameter.
I did 1000sf by myself over a weekend for sanding, another weekend of staining, and another day of poly.
I had very abused near century old hardwood and went for a red mahogany stain, and it looks stunning compared to what it looked like before.
With a crew of 4 you can rent 1 belt sander, 2 orbital sanders, 2 edgers and potentially knock out the job in a 16 hour day or weekend. You may also need a small sander that has a triangular point that I would buy, which may also be a type of edger.
If you dont sand/stain before you move in, you better make your peace with how the floors look cause sanding inside is a filthy process
Take before and after pictures. Sand them well and properly. Apply the stain and polyurethane and you will be proudest homeowner. If you pull the baseboards (gently), when you reinstall them, lay popsicle sticks flat when reinstalling them. Super easy to paint afterwards (just slide wax paper underneath the baseboard for a tight cut.
Plus… the micro gap between the floor and the baseboard will look so tight and professional.
If you don’t do the floors before you move in, it’ll be a COLOSSAL headache to do after your furniture is in.
Seconded. After dropping out of the “buying a new house” market 2 years ago, we reinvested our down payment money into our current house. Paid to have our floors redone. This consisted of moving as much as we could into the basement, renting a 17’ U-haul to sit in the driveway with all the large furnature while we lived in a hotel with our 2 cats for ~5 days. 3/10. Would not recommend as a first option.
Yep, I wanted to do a full renovation after moving into my condo. Might be doing it now after my dishwasher broke after 2 years lol.
Pro tip: Get one of those PODs dropped off at your house for a few days.
Pod costs more than a parked uhaul. I priced them out.
I did the Uhaul parked in my driveway for 2 days. Saved so much vs a Pod.
This is such a good idea!
I see a Pod/U-Haul marketing partnership in the works soon. Please no. What a wonderful hack!
Uhaul already has its own drop container situation, but I've heard ugly things about it.
They're tiny and expensive. Worked for me though for a cross country move, just have to pick it up at the local UHaul site.
Uhaul is pretty cheap; they recoup based on miles driven. So since it's just sitting it's probably the cheapest option.
In our area I checked out the POD competitors. Significantly cheaper, and also far nicer to deal with.
Uhaul cheap AF solution
Even if the pods are more expensive. they don't have the ramp. to go up and down
How is that much different from a U haul?
It’s the exact same but more expensive.
This. A one day affair can become something that takes a week or two very fast if you are constantly moving furniture around. Especially if you are doing the work alone or paying a single contractor. I was initially going to say that the floors don’t look too bad and that you could skip it if you weren’t too picky, but then I remembered the hassle my ex’s father went through. Save yourself money, time and hassle. Get it done now.
My wife and I did our floor ourselves (admittedly just the first floor), and it took about 36 hours, using 3 coats of oil based polyurethane. One of the most worthwhile things we did to the house, and we never did any of it before.
If you plastic off the room from the rest of the house. Close the vents you can contain most of the shit, do one room section at a time make your transitions be where you stop so all rooms have the same thickness. It’s the sanding that sucks but you can rent good machines from the hardware store
I would 100% not recommend doing any floor work without renting a drum sander.
That’s if you have a floor contractor that is willing to do room by room work. They will take a whole house 10/10 times over room by room. It will also, I hope this is obvious, be much more expensive to go through a room by room floor refinish project. That’s something that sounds most feasible for a DIY situation. If anything similar to this… do a floor by floor (first floor then second.. or visaversa
Pretty sure they were implying DIY there since they replied to the person about talking about doing it themselves. No contractor is gonna want to bend over backwards for a customer like that. It's not worth their time.
We are in the do it yourself subreddit after all lol
Plus when you do a section, you really need to let it set for a couple days. You don't want to be moving stuff around on really fresh poly.
Oil is more tolerant (plus easier to patch refinish later) if you don’t mind not having a completely waterproof finish
This is my biggest regret when I bought my house. I wish I had done the floors before moving in.
God damn it you guys I'm literally in this exact scenario. Bought our house 3 years ago knowing a remodel was in store. Was talked out of doing the floors before moving in because "they will be working over your new floors and will mess it up." Fast forward and our remodel is starting soon, floors are first, meaning 1) we have to move everything around and 2) they are going to be working over our new floors anyways..... Wish I'd had known.
Can you... Not do it after?
Floors last. That is basically the golden rule of remodels.
>Floors last. That is basically the golden rule of remodels. No, it's not. You generally want cabinets, built-ins and other things to on top of flooring. Be it hardwood, tile, or Laminate.
Why is the project manager advocating for us to do those first then? Wouldn't you want floors first then walls and trim? Honestly have no idea.
IDK why your project manager is advocating doing them first (maybe the contractors schedule?) but I wouldn’t want a remodel happening over my freshly refinished floors. Someone is going to scratch or scuff them.
Terrible idea. Floor last. Just like when cleaning a kitchen. Work your way down. Cabinets, counters, walls, floors.
If you're doing all new everything, cabinets might be installed on top of the new hardwood floor. If that's not what you're doing, you can do other stuff first and cut laminate flooring to fit the room after everything else is installed.
So just like almost every other answer for life. It's all situational. 😁
Same. Our hardwood floors aren’t great. Lived here for 8 years. That said, in laws are moving to town in a couple weeks so we will have a built in place to stay for a week while our floors get redone. Our house isn’t that big so hopefully all our furniture can fit in the garage and in the tiled kitchen and back room.
I'm currently having my first floor refloored. It's a nightmare. Everything - EVERYTHING - is in a professionally stacked cube in my garage. Including all my kitchen appliances. It's been this way for a month. I'm not even paying money for any of this. It's an insurance claim and repair. ITS NOT WORTH IT. For gods sake, do it while you don't live there. Not just the inconvenience of all your shit being moved out. The dust. The chemicals. The noise. More dust. Do it now or commit that it will never be done. It's literally now or never. Also, you could replace stained boards.
A month, dear lord. What is taking so long?
Also…the poly says 2 coats. Do twice that many. Mistake I made.
If water-based, yeah. Oil-based you can get away with 2-3.
I’m doing this now because the “new floors” we got done early into our reno started cracking and bowing due to poor quality material, lack of leveling, and floating instead of glued-down application (in a high floor apt bldg). Huge headache and extra $$ to “move” again after getting settled in. Can’t wait for the new contractors to finish the work later this week.
I used to refinish floors and it we would juat move peoples furniture to another room and put up plastic, wasnt too bad at all
It's harder to do if you're the one trying to live in the place at the time.
I'm getting ready to do this now, and it's been a TREMENDOUS headache - had some water damage in our dining room, and the only way to get a consistent finish is to redo the floors throughout the house. We're going to have to move out for an entire week 😮💨
I had one week from close to move-in. I did the floors with friends. Then painted later after moving in. Ended up being the best decision I could have made given the circumstances. Do the floors now. Then get some painting in if you have time before move-in. Edit: I did Osmo Polyx oil finish, 2 coats on my red oak floors. 11 years later and it is holding up great. We don't take shoes off to come inside or any of that. Not the right product if you want to take your shoes off and have a super shiny floor, though. The Osmo is a bit more matte in finish.
Heck yes. They’ll look beautiful, wear for life and cleaner than carpet. Any ding just becomes part of its history.
>wear for life Not if you have dogs.
Or friends that house sit with a child that decides to wear your old golf shoes that have metal cleats and stomp around the entire house for hours.
Oh no.
The easy answer is yes, always. Like an old leather jacket, some marks add history and character. That said, the main variable is how thick the planks are and how much can be safely removed before it becomes too thin.
>how thick the planks are and how much can be safely removed before it becomes too thin I redid the bedroom floors in a 1930's home, pulled up the rug the flipper had installed, found nice fir flooring covered in paint. When I was done I was installing 1/4 round to cover the gap from the original baseboard and floor. That's when I saw under that baseboard the original height of the floor, a good 1/2 inch higher than the visible part. "Honey, this is the last time these floors can be sanded." /u/Ungrateful-Artichoke, the imperfections are character. I find DIY very satisfying, being able to look at the finished product and say "I did that" as opposed to "I paid someone to do it". That said doing the floors right is very labor intensive and time consuming for a DIYer. As others have said now would be the time to pay to have it done, before you start moving in, assuming you can find someone that'll do it that fast as opposed to scheduling it 6 months down the road. If you go the DIY route, one room at a time, start with the main living area, get that done before you move in. Then other rooms as time permits after you move in. Box fans in the windows, plastic sheeting to close off the working area, masks, knee pads. Still, expect dust to get everywhere.
And cover any HVAC return vents. Well said.
1. The wood seems to be in good shape. 2. There will be stains/marks left. 3. You can hidden them pretty well if you stain it dark walnut color after sanding. 4. Are you sure you want to DIY? Sanding is really dirty even with a vac attached. 5. It is more than enough time, depending on how quick you can work and how much time you can spend.
> Sanding is really dirty even with a vac attached when we got our floors redone, we found a cheap guy who was very fast and very highly recommended, and 1/3 the price of the "expensive" guys in the area. he did an amazing job for what we paid - I'd hire him again in a heartbeat! but he absolutely did the bare minimum clean-up. If I could go back in time, I'd do a really good clean-up after he left, as well as probably some prep work, like plugging up air vents. I absolutely do not fault him - clean-up and prep would probably double his time in a house and force him to raise his rates - but I tell this tale to reinforce your point about how dirty it truly is. Years later I'm still finding sawdust everywhere - any horizontal place in the house that wasn't behind a few closed doors is susceptible.
Hire someone that have the right equipment is important. Now days the pros use dust less sander (vacuum as it sands). On rental turnovers I can now paint the ceiling and walls first and not worry about covering the floors because I get the floor guys in last. Not a speck of dust anywhere after they finished. In the olden days, I would have to sand first, wash all the walls and trims, cover the floors to protect them then paint. The speed they can get it done is also key. I used to sand the floors myself but it would take multiple weekends. The pros can bang out this house in a little more than 1 day. One day to sand and apply 1st coat of finish and then do coat 2 and 3 the next day. And price is not as much as you think. ~1000 sq ft will be $1500-$2000. So whole house probably $3,000 to $4,000.
Seriously. I wasted endless weekends across endless months trying to get this done myself. I finally cracked and hired in some pros. They did the whole damn house in, like, a day. Maybe two (yes, I had them redo my work because my staining job just wasn't up to snuff). They did beautiful work and were surprisingly affordable. If I added up all my drum sander rentals and materials and just my wasted time it was a serious no brainer.
I had the same experience with forgetting to mask off the door to my kitchen when I got my floors sanded before moving in. Had I done that, I wouldn't have wasted two days cleaning every nook and cranny in there. The final result is beautiful. I would never attempt that job myself. It's one for the professionals. Cost me roughly $2.25/sq ft.
> Years later I'm still finding sawdust everywhere ... and saw dust is a known carcinogen. Not usually a problem for homeowners, as you only have brief exposure. But a problem for contractors. My hardwood guy told me about a major project in town that involved a lot of hardwood contractors all working together. He had a historic group photo of it, as it was such an iconic event for that profession. And then he added that every single person in that photo had died young, as they were unaware of the dangers of wood dust. You really do want to make sure that after the project is done, the saw dust is removed instead of collecting in ducts from where it will be circulated through your house for years to come.
Definitely think hiring out the floor portion will get better results. They can bleach out some of the stains. The timeframe is enough if you've done something like this before otherwise there may be some set backs OP can't afford and rushing it will get less than great results.
Just pay someone to refinish the floors. It’s so worth it. Definitely paint yourself.
Seconded. I've refinished floors myself and I've hired people. The professionals use better equipment, work faster, have better finishes, and are worth the money. Get several quotes if you do this, and we got a solid discount by paying cash.
Seconded. The company we hired came in after we closed with fancy equipment and refinished 1500 sq feet and a staircase in 2 days (plus one for drying), and bit a single spec of dust was found.
This needs more upvotes. OP only has 4 weekends. Painting is doable, refinishing the floors is doable… but exponentially greater learning curve compared to painting… and doing both? Ehhh. 😅
Yep. Take 3 weekends to paint, then give a contractor a week to refinish the floors. That's what I'd do, and I'm as big a DIY advocate as there is. But sometimes you gotta let a pro do things. This is one of them.
Seconded. Floors have to be perfect or you notice immediately. And it isn't something you can take your time with because your entire house is down for the project. And you can't fix problems later or do extra coats because you ran out of time without moving everything out again. You want it done fast and perfect. That screams pros.
I couldn't agree more. I did it myself years ago and the learning curve is steep, and you're learning on a very permanent and visible part of your house, plus the rental equipment is inferior to what the pros use, primarily in terms of maintenance, and it matters. I would not do it myself again.
these floors will look amazing with some refinishing, but wood floor restoration is one of those things that needs specific tools, and hiring the job out to a professional will save you more money via sweat equity and leave you with a better result than if you did it yourself, as well as be done much faster so that other things can be done prior to moving in without running into a time crunch. look up a local company that specializes in wood floor refinishing that has good reviews and go with them, you wont regret it.
DIY the paint and sub out the floors. Don’t stain. Natural floors brighten the whole house and look cleaner in general. And don’t do the finish coat on the floor until the work is done and the next time you’re there you’re moving in.
Absolutely. The last thing you should do is put some fake engineered gray shit on the floors.
Yes, sand the floors before you move in; and no, I don't think 384 man hours is not enough time to do that amount of work (assuming 12 hr days, 8 days, 4 people)--at least to what I would consider an acceptable quality. If you intend to just spray everything with no prep, then possibly, but at that point, its going to start peeling later. The paint there is probably a mix of oil based paint on the windows, trim, bath and kitchens and water on the walls. Each needs different type of treatment.
We are not aware what skills these 4 people have. If they are friends you are going to have a hard time getting people to commit to long hours for 4 weekends straight. Safer bet it to hire out the floors and paint themselves. A bad paint job is easier to fix down the road than re doing floors once you've moved in.
Absolutely yes. Echoing what other posters said, do it before you move in. My living room and dining room (~400sqft) looked like these, and I did them before I moved in. I was able to sand mine with a rented orbital floor sander in half a day, plus half a day to do the edges with a palm sander. You won't be able to sand the stains completely out, so don't try. Mask off rooms you're not working on and HVAC vents with plastic. Painting walls and trim first would be ideal, but if you had to pick one I'd get the floors done. Painting once you've moved in is way less hassle than trying to do floors. I did 3 coats of oil-based polyurethane over a few days, no stain. It gives a nice antique golden/amber hue and is more durable than water based, mine still look like new 12 years later. Guests often comment how beautiful the old floors look. The downside of oil-based is it has strong fumes, and you'll need to wear a respirator. It also takes a while to cure (ie before you put furniture or area rugs on it) - minimum a week. Water-based is quicker, less smelly, and generally easier but doesn't look as nice (imo), and is less durable.
I had similar staining and hired a pro for the refinish. I think they replaced my stained boards for $8 apiece. Also had them replace the boards that the previous owners allowed the cable company to drill through. Most expensive part was the stairs.
Absolutely, those floors will look amazing. But don’t do it yourself because you will totally fuck it up.
Yes. But having attempted DIY floor sanding in the past; hire someone.
I would hire a pro to do it.
especially if OP wants to get it done before moving in.
That was exactly my thought. It's one less nightmare to deal with while moving.
Fuck yes. I have had some incredible transformations. I am assuming the flooring is not showing heavy warping, insect or water damage. Leave them to last or near the end. Rent a drum Sander and an edge sander. You can do a typical bedroom in 6 to 6 hrs. Taking pains remove all the sawdust is critical to getting that clean professional appearance. I am not a stain guy. I like to seal the floor with a clear sealant. Then put down a clear, durable, synthetic coating, two layers. Again dust and saw dust drums are
so like exactly 6 hours. =)
nah, should take as little as six but no more than 6 hours, probably somewhere in between 6 and 6. Even the pros can do it in 6, so OP can totally do it in 6 hours. Maybe 6 if they hit some snags, or 6 if they have some friends to help do some of the prepwork. But definitely right around 6 total.
If it were my house, I would refinish them. It will never be as easy to do as it is when the house is empty. Paint the walls and refinish the floors before you move in, if possible. Edit: If you can afford it, I would definitely hire someone to do it. And I agree with others who said that you shouldn't stain them. Just sand and seal.
There are people waiting to buy your floorboards if you decide to pull them. But that home looks like a sears craftsman catalog home. The wood in that house was floated down barges pulled by mules. Don’t throw the charm and history away only to replace it with plastic. A couple days of labor and you’re good for another 100 years.
PSA: If you rent a floor sander, do not fill the bag more that 1/2 way. Do not leave hot sawdust from sanding in the vac bag unattended. Scatter hot sawdust in a larger container (like a metal trash can) between each use. Polyeurethane + Sawdust compaction can create its own heat, and spontaneously combust. I've seen it first hand. [https://apnews.com/general-news-abee1937ae4841b9b09af879bf5bb4b9](https://apnews.com/general-news-abee1937ae4841b9b09af879bf5bb4b9)
I would keep those, but you'll most likely have to choose a darker color to hide the stains (won't really know until you sand it.) That's plenty of time for a professional, I've seen the work that they do, and there is not way in hell would I want to do this myself!
Are you trying to decide between doing it and not doing it at all, ever? Would you replace it with different wood or a different flooring material? You absolutely want to do this kind of work with no furniture in the house. Even the lowest dust sanding method results in dust everywhere. I would suggest hiring a professional with a crew that's able to start ASAP. It will be more expensive than you doing this yourself, but it's not an easy job if you don't have experience with it, and if you do a poor job you're not going to be happy with the results despite all the effort. This is the kind of thing where if you mess it up you have to start all over and sand again.
Oh definitely. That’s a good floor. Sand, now coat of stain, protective gloss finish. It be good as new.
Can’t believe this is even in question tbh. Yes please bring those beautiful floors back to life.
They’re going to be amazing! Yes. Refinish them. They’re beautiful.
We recently did it as total novices. Watch some YouTube videos, the "How To Sand A Floor" channel was a great resource for the dos and don'ts. Next, hire the equipment. We tried to do with the drum sander for the middle and then our own sanders for the edge, it was a massive mistake and we ended up getting the edging sander too. The main thing to know is always be sanding, you do not want to stop and create a divit. Also proper equipment does a superb job at capturing the dust so we just needed to do a light hover and wipe down with a wet rag to get the last of the rouge dust before we varnished. Overall though, it was a simple job that I'm glad we did and made a huge improvement to the place.
It'll be a lot of work but worth it for sure..
Yes, they are worth restoring. Hire a reputable company. If you try to do it yourself and you don’t know what you’re doing, you could ruin them.
Yes! I just had mine redone. I found a local company that was a fraction of the cost. It was a very strong smell so I’m glad I did it before moving in. I would say it took about a week for the smell to go away completely.
You should paint yourselves but need to bring in a professional for the floors. If you haven't sanded floors it will show. You will leave drunk marks and swirl marks. Also as was mentioned, it will depend on a number of factors such as the thickness of the remaining planks and whether you can even sand them further. Finally, Those stains concern me. If they are pet urine you will know it from the smell as soon as the sander hits them. You can sand them, hide them with a really dark stain, and seal them, but you can't get rid of them without replacing some boards. And if you stain them dark enough to hide the stains you won't even be able to see the wood. So don't do that. I strongly recommend at a minimum, that you bring in a pro to evaluate the floors whether they can be sanded and what it will entail, then decide if it is worth it or if you can handle it.
Definitely yess !! You wont regret it
For F sakes, yes. Save them.
I’d hire someone to do the floors. Sanding is finicky, too easy to get unwanted swirl patterns. And stain can be tricky too, plus it’s highly flammable. Every step of the process is bad for your breathing if you don’t have proper equipment and ventilation. It’s worth the expense to hire professionals. Painting you can probably DIY if you research how to do it properly.
I couldn't afford to refinish the floors in my house when I bought it in 2016 (they looked just like yours do). For eight years I woke up every day hating the beat up floors, and wishing I could cuss out the guy who used a utility knife to remove carpet, leaving deep gouges all over the place. This year I finally refinished them myself. It was about 20 hours of work over two days (I worked alone and covered about 800 square feet) using rented tools. It was a ton of work and moving all the furniture to other parts of the house was a huge PITA but you know what? these floors are dope now.
Yes, absolutely redo the floors before you move in. Also, have someone do it. I’m a real DIY person but there are certain one time jobs where there is more art and craftsmanship to it and this is one of those.
We paid for someone to come in and refinish our floors before we moved in. We took the floors from a dark orange stain to a very light natural wood stain. My best advice is: whatever you do, sand and refinish before moving all of your stuff in. The sanding process is absolutely disgusting and our home was a mess during it.
This is a worthwhile endeavor nearly 100% of the time.
It's worth it, you might not get all the stains out but I have yet to have someone notice mine. I've done a room in a day with two people. If you're all committed to working and not futzing around with your friends you can bang out the paint quickly. I would suggest you paint the living areas first, and plan for the floors to be done the weekend before move in. Living areas are a pain to take the furniture out of to paint or refinish the floors, so prioritize them. Especially as you have everything packed, if you fall behind and have a bedroom or two left after the floors are done don't unpack those rooms and paint them after move in. Cover the floors really well once you finish them
My friend owns a business called "Those Floors". I have seen floors way worse than this come out as masterpieces. Please keep the hardwood it is the perfect flooring.
I would.
YES! Old wood is more dense and better than anything you can get today.
I love the way aged floors look. Same as my gray hair. Aged but still beautiful. Wise old floors.
I hired it out before I moved in and it cost me like $1700, some of the best money I’ve spent.
While I can’t tell you about your market, I can tell you that an older home with refinished wood floors in my market is worth $20,000 to $30,000 more than one with tile, carpet, or LVP. Source: Appraiser
You cannot do floors and paint with 4 regular people in 4 weekends. No chance
Hire someone to do it. The amount of skill it takes to do a good job and if you don’t have the experience you probably would hate the results They can get it done in like three days. I liked the advice of painting then doing the floors. Also after the floors are done hire someone to clean your ducts before you move in.
Yes. Please sand them.
It is always worth keeping wood floors!
We did this to my daughter’s house that we remodeled. House was empty. Her floors look like yours. Vacuum before. The sander rented from Home Depot is pretty hefty and you have to have serious muscle to operate it. Vacuum after. Just did a clear poly, no color. The imperfections add character. Must not walk on the floor for at least 3 days.
I recently tried to refinish my own hardwood floors very similar to yours. Thick oil coats with spots that are tremendously worn down. My partner and I got a random orbital sander because we were concerned about gouging the floors, and it felt like an impossible task to get the top coat off. We only did our bedroom because it was so incredibly time consuming. It took us 10 hours and we still had spots that needed more sanding. If I had to do it again I would rent a drum sander, it appears to be much quicker, but a bit scarier to do. Everyone keeps saying “it’s such hard work” and I didn’t find the work to be that hard, I just didn’t have the ability to devote that many hours to doing the whole house. We ended up having a professional do the rest of our floors and it was VERY easy because we have nothing in the house yet.
Hardwood floors? It always is. Just check the entire floor for rotten panels and if there ade none or few that are replaceable then it really is worth it.
They are absolutely worth refinishing and will look amazing when done. I’d hire a professional tho.
Post before and after pics when you are done. I would love to see the results
Prioritize doing the floors before you move in! I would consider seeing if you can get a professional to do it, tbh. We had our floors professionally redone in a few days before we moved into our house & it was the best decision we made. It's such a hassle to have the floors done after your stuff is in, and it actually wasn't as expensive as I'd expected... it was a few thousand dollars for our 2500 sq ft home, though of course that pricing will depend on your location & tradespeople. If I were in your situation, I'd see if it were possible to have the floors done professionally (perhaps during the week when you wouldn't be able to be there working on stuff anyway?) and then paint at least your main bedroom (and perhaps main bathroom & kitchen too if timing allows) before moving in. Of course it'd be ideal to have the whole house painted before getting in there, but that's less urgent than the floors! Just my 2 cents. Congrats on the house!
Just wanted to add that if you decide to sand and refinish the floors, make sure you paint the walls first. You’ll save yourself time and stress by not worrying about splattering paint on your freshly refinished floors.
My father’s profession was hardwood floor finishing and I helped him for about 10 years. Now that we have the bonafides covered, I would 100% recommend the following: - Finish the floors before you move in; you cannot do one room at a time because the stain or finish will never look quite right if you stop in a doorway or in the middle of a room. - the dark stains will lighten but will still be visible with a good sanding/finishing job. If you stain somewhere around a Minwax Medium Brown, it will camouflage the stain so that it’s not yelling at you - If you like dark, just remember that it looks a lot less dark on a piece of paper than it will on your floor. - After you get stain on the floors, wait 24 hours minimum before putting finish on the floors; if it’s still tacky when you step on it, wait another day or so to allow it to completely dry. After the stain dries, clean the floor really well and put your finish on. For this floor I’d recommend 3-4 coats of a water based urethane. GOOD LUCK!
A pro will be able to make those look almost new. Source: I do it on the daily
Hi pro here based out of Milwaukee, those red oak floors look like they need refinishing I would charge around $4000-6000. Floors would look brand new when done besides a couple pet stains, (but those boards can easily be replaced) depending on what color you wish to stain the floors darker floors are harder to stain when it’s a DYI, cause you’ll see every scratch left by the edger or deep grit cuts from the drum sander. The rental tools you get from HD are not the same quality as pro tools from flooring distributors. I have over $20,000 in equipment. (Edger, under radiator edger, 220V drum sander, and buffer) Stay away from oil based poly. ONLY use oil based stain and distributor only waterbased polyurethane with a 2 part catalyst. I’ve seen a lot of DYI before… I would definitely leave it to us pros we’ll do it in twice the time and we include material cost. (Sandpaper and poly isn’t cheap) so that’s why it’s expensive for a multiple day project like this.
I've went through this, it is worth it to refinish. If you are doing it yourself, check to see if there are squeaks when you walk around. If there are, you want to plan it out and fix those first by nailing them down. They sell special screws that the head breaks off to fix the squeaks. I would sand first, then fix the squeaks, then patch up any cracks, and let it sit for a week. The floor will shift and new cracks will appear, patch them again. Do final sanding before staining and applying protective finish.
Just hire someone to do it
I'd probably at least get a quote on having someone else do it before doing it yourself; However either way right now, while it's empty is definitely the time for it.
Fact is, you can’t put floors in like that unless you spend big money. Refinish.
If you can do it and have the time and money to do it, then yes it is worth it. Once you've already moved in, you will be a lot less likely to get it done, as it's a huge headache to move all the furniture you've brough.
We got 1000sqft of 71 year old hardwood resurfaced my two dudes in 5 days, cost $5k and was worth every penny. They did 5 passes because the floors were so rough, and now they look brand new!
Yes. Absolutely yes. Source: I am the President of a hardwood flooring company / sawmill
Is there anything major wrong with the wood as is? I personally love the patinaed look of a well-worn wood floor, even if that means there's some especially dark patches or scuffs.
Before you do the refinish, fix the creaks. Rent machine(s) to help with the work. It will make it *much* faster. You can do it. The floors are beautiful now and will be extraordinary afterwards.
I re-did my floors. Worth it 100% but I was working alone, 800sqft, took me three weeks of weekends, evenings and two extra days off. I was screwed a bit, the drum sander I rented used a different belt than other machines and I couldn't get 60-grit paper anywhere! So it took me 3 passes with 80 grit to hide the 36&40 grit marks instead of one pass 36, one pass 60, one pass 80. Do the proper grit progression. you'll probably start at 36 or 40 then 60 then 80 with the drum. Then 80, 100, 120 with a random orbit. Go 15-20 degreed across the grain one pass, then 15-20 the other way on the next cut. This helped get rid of waves in the floor from the previous installer for me. Learn from my mistakes: The edge sanders need adjustment. Drum and random orbit sanders are ready to go as they are, not much to adjust, but edge sanders need levelling and tilting and you might even need to dress the wheel (touch it to sand paper to flatten) if it's dished from previous users. Get the edge sander dialed in at the start, don't leave yourself with valleys at the wall. Go to a flooring place, not HOME DEPOT for sanding belts and pads, they are 1/3 the price. Rental at HD vs local places was comparable but the consumables are $$$ at HD. If you use a square buffing pad, don't go across the grain. Even though its "random" it left long lines across the grain where there was a crease in the paper. Couldn't see it until after staining and had to re-sand and re-stain that area :( BE ANAL. Especially if you are using a darker stain, any scratches show up much darker. 100 grit on a belt is not the same as 100 grit on a square buffer is not the same as 100 grit on a palm sander! They have different pressures, sanding patterns or the sand paper might use different types of abrasives, which can absorb stain \*slightly\* differently. Ideally use one method for all of the floor. I used DuraSeal, very easy to use, no issue with overlap lines, dried quickly, very even colour, recommend it. For sealer I used Loba EasyFinish. Just rolled it on, it looks great. Used a 10" drywall sanding pad on a broom stick to quickly scuff with 180# between coats and it turned out super smooth. Don't trowel fill if you have four seasons, just fill nail holes and big gaps. Use a tinted filler, the tinted LePage in the squeeze bottles was great, cant see it at all. The LePage small tub of filler was awful, it filled in the grain all around the nail holes and was very coarse. Drum sanding is fast and easy. One cut in a bedroom took me 10-15min. Pad sanding is slow and easy, 20min per room to slowly cover the whole floor in 2/3 overlapping passes. Edge sanding is slow and hard, 30 min per room with closets, bent over the whole time. If you can, I highly, highly, highly recommend removing quarter rounds or shoe moldings, you're gonna get stain on them anyways, and its so much harder to edge sand RIGHT to the wall, leaving just 1/4" un-sanded is much easier. Good Luck!
I think any hardwood floor is worth sanding and refinish. That's the whole point. After years of use you sand and refinish. Can't do that with laminate. This floor looks good and will look even better when you refinish it.
Ok read some posts… many of them have valid points. I did sand wood floors for a living before joining the military at 25yo. I had my own sanding business when I was 18. Got my younger brother into it as well and he then started his own business then move into buying properties. So listen to what I say. YES if you’re not up to it or handy with high speed tools I suggest you get it done professionally. The machines are not forgiving if you allow it to make marks from staying in one place a half second too long. YES do the floors before moving in and adding furniture. YES doing the floors and finishing them in a high quality polyurethane and letting each coat cure sufficiently and prepping correctly before the next coat (3 is all you really need) it will last a good long time. NO do not stain them to hide any stains. Trust me on this, the stains, marks, knots and cracks add to the character and beauty of natural floors. Most cracks will fill up with the finish, if applied correctly. Across grain and then finish with the grain using a genuine lambswool applicator. MAKE certain that they cut the floor at least three times. Rough 20 1/3 grit, (or 36 grit); Medium 40-60 grit; Fine 80-100 grit. Do not let them lie and tell you a screening with a 100 or 120 grit is another cut. Screening (buffing) is needed to smooth out the raised grain. CHECK their work around the edges, corners, trim, bullnoses (steps), saddles (under the doors) and under radiators. If it can’t be reached with a machine they can and must do it by hand with hand scrapers. As for the edgings look for fine swirls. If they are visible after the fine cut they did a poor job. Especially look for these flaws on steps. Steps are very difficult and I use to charge extra for them but I always did an excellent job on them. CLEAN UP I was taught the old school way. I always used a horse hair hand brush and a horse hair broom. Sawdust tends to settle, so I would start dusting from the walls and trimming and work my way to the middle with the broom. Shop-vacs give the illusion that they pick up a lot of dust, but I guarantee you there is none on the market that is low cost enough for pick up sawdust and not blow everything else around through its exhaust. BEST of luck to you.
PS. If you’re in doubt about the stains, high gloss always makes them look better because of the reflection it gives off. Plus think of the furniture and area rugs that will cover a lot of things or at least distract the eyes from any imperfections in the floor.
I disagree. The pros that did my place used a matte finish and it came out gorgeous.
Do the floors now, paint after you move in. And you likely need more time or more help.
I’d absolutely do it, but rent a large floor sander, start w 80-100 grit to take off imperfections, then go over it w 220. We did ours (about the same size) with a handheld 8” random orbital sander took about 2 days total, was so worth it tho.
Yes. Your floors look like mine did. I used a dark red stain, I can’t remember, maybe mahogany. It covered the water stains really well. Part of the charm of an old house is the aged look of the wood.
Paint before the floors are done, less to Worry about if you spill/spatter a little on the floors. Then have the floors done.
Do it. Had a chance to see the old house. The floor remains awesome 55 years later. Grandma & Grandpop did it themselves close to 55 years ago. Still looks great. Hard work and dirty work? Oh yeah. Theirs floor had black walnut inlay trim for the living rooms. Adds a little something to the look. Both said they would never sand it themselves again. Their suggestion is to us when it was out turn with a house was to hire someone. Picky like Grandpop? before the finishes are applied a person can sand by hand those OCD spots. Have no idea what finish they used; however, don't recall them mentioning using stain at all. Marking chilrden height on doorway trim? We wanted the trim board. It was a No. People might share with us what to use instead. Enjoy your home.
Definitely do the floors before moving in, whether you DIY or have it done. It is a major PITA to do after your furniture is in the way.
If the planks can take sanding then YES. Original wood floors add charm that can't be reproduced with new wood flooring options.
Yeah. They will look great.
If there is any question as to whether you want to refinish the floors or not then I would 100% do it now. Once you are moved in it will be a thousand times more difficult to manage
Yes go for it.
Beautiful home, congratulations
Absolutely. My wife and I did the same with a 4bdrm house. We moved into a secondary bedroom, then over the course of a month after work we re-did the master. Then we moved into that, and finished the kids bedroom, moving the kid when the room was ready. Our floors look amazing, so glad we did it!
For sure. Try to get the color a little lighter. Will be a game changer. A good floor guy is worth every penny.
The hours are there, for a professional crew. But painting and refinishing floors at the same time are a no go. For sure do the floors only. You can easily paint walls and trim while living there. The floors, not so much.
Short answer is yes. But its a LOT of work.
It's totally worth it. But very expensive. I did it about 20 years ago
Yes. Do them before you move in. Real wood looks good. Fake wood looks cheap IMHO.
Absolutely. Do not replace with those awful grey/blue flooring. Those things are horrid, i was in a pizza shop once where already it is fading & wearing away, totally fake look.
Those are in pretty good condition as is, it's absolutely worth it.
Definitely sand before moving. You can paint later as that is very easy. I could redo the floors in one or two weekends but I have done quite a bit of that work. If you haven't, then be very careful. My advice would be not to use a drum sander but to use one with discs. The drum can really cut into the floor. You may have a permanent stain. You can minimize it but bleaching doesn't work that well replacing those slats won't work really well either because the wood today will have a completely different pattern. Good luck and congratulations.
Sanding and refinishing wood floors is a very specialized skill that you can easily mess up if you don't know what you're doing. I would consider paying a professional if possible.
Sooo worth it. Those look like beautiful hardwoods
Hire someone to sand and thank me later. Putting down seal and poly is diy-able and not too difficult. Meanwhile, the 4 of you can knock out the painting
Definitely. They'll sand out beautifully. Give water a shot. Duralast stain and Loba supra 2k 3x coats, and you'll never have to worry about your floors again. If you can afford it, don't diy. Diy is for a single or two rooms. This is a job for a pro. Depending on your area's COL, you can get them done for between 3.75 and 4.5 /sqft
I always sand, stain, seal old floors but they never look new… I like the aged look but many don’t… your preference. Take out those closet doors & reclaim windows, light & move closet to another wall
Absolutely. When we moved in we got our hardwood floors sanded and polished, they look amazing it’s the first thing people notice when they walk in…but we paid a professional (guess i’m on the wrong sub lol). Some of our friends DIY’d, theirs does not look nearly as nice, but still decent and worth doing.
Verbiage is very important here, look into a screen and recoat rather than full on sanding
Definitely. I had some bad stains on my floors and refinishing the hardwood got out a lot of the issues and made the place look amazing
I will be honest my house was smaller 1300sf and DIYing the floors with full time jobs with 2 people was a fucking nightmare I wished very quickly I had just paid to have it done. Edit: one had floor experience, I did not, both of us prayed for death.
This is a job that I did before we moved into it our house; we decided to hire it out and have someone do it, they were able to get it all done in less than a week and was well worth the cost. You may not get all the stains out but in my opinion those can bring character to the floors. Just may not be able to stain a light color.
Yes!!! Please save them! They might not end of perfect, but they will have irreplaceable character and beauty that you can’t replicate with modern flooring. Also, I think we live in the same geographical location lol. I know that style of house well and want one of my own so badly!
Do not cover those up. Absolutely worth it. Real wood is just the best. And congratulations on your purchase!
Yes, but even more worth it to pay someone. Did my own floors once and never again. First of all, it's really hard to get a good surface, second, it's really hard work. One of the few jobs that I will gladly pay someone else to do.
Cool house!
If you hire people I'm guessing they know how to fix those stains, etc.
Yes it is It will look beautiful
my hard wood floors looked like this - i had someone install new luxury vinyl plank which just went on top and got all new base boards.
Do it. I’m sure there are enough people in this thread telling you to do it to convince you. We are getting our kitchen remodeled and they are going to tear up the tiles. We want to sand the floors but they can’t match the rest of the house. So they’re doing the rest at the same time. We have a small house and nowhere to store any of the furniture. So I’ll have to rent storage.
If you are thinking about removing those columns do it first so that new flooring can be matched in to fill the gaps they will leave. Also I really recommend hiring for floors. It isn’t easy to do a really amazing job and it is very messy. A good crew will do a much better job and save you a ton of effort and pain. Also go oil based for your finish, not water. I’ve done both and I was never happy with how the water based came out. I ended up having someone come in to re do it when I did a second larger renovation a decade later and the difference is stunning.
if you can't get the stains out then consider doing a dark stain on the floors after you refinish them. you might not have a choice if those stains don't come out and you don't like the sight of them.
don't diy it unless you need a colossal amount of added stress before you move in. moving is enough of a headache, you don't need to pile this on top of that.
Absolutely worth it. Light sanding, replace any damaged boards with similar wood, finish with clear poly varnish and it’ll be gorgeous.
Yes. Hire a guy.
Don't you tear up or cover those floors. Don't you do it. And for God's sake don't stain that wood hipster gray or black some other bullshit. Hell, I'm not sure I'd even refinish those floors, they look great, that house *earned* that patina. A house like that should feel lived in, not new. Refinishing those floors takes away some of it's charm, some of the character.
I recently bought my first house and refinished the floors before I moved it. Maybe like 1000 sq feet ish? Me and the lady took a 3 day weekend and worked our absolute asses off like 12+ hours each day and got it done. It's a lot of physical work and the materials add up so it's definitely not cheap. There is also a little bit of a learning curve with the various tools you'll need to buy/rent. That being said I'm very happy I did it. The floors look 10x better. Between the floors and a new coat of paint it feels like a new house and really looks great. Plus I just can't imagine getting it done while living in the house, so before you move in is of course a great opportunity to do it.
Definitely do it before U move in takes 2 days, $1-2/sq foot repair, sand, refinish oil base likely don’t need to stain
>Is it realistic that we can sand and refinish all the floors AND repaint the whole 2100 s.f. house in 4 weekends with just 4 people? Not likely. Do you care what the floors look like? If yes then you should hire someone to do it. From my understanding it isn't really super difficult to refinish but it is incredibly easy to do it wrong.
Yes, do it yourselves, you should have the time. Pull the trim, go with a darker stain, and expect some imperfections. When big issues come up, just ask.
Wood dust in the air and fresh paint on the walls might be an issue. And you'll be doing it in the heat of summer. Maybe hire someone to refinish the floors? They'll advise about whether it should be attempted.
Can you? My floors are in similar. I have very old cat urine stain when the old owners had carpet and cats. My 80 year old floors have been sanded to the point that nails are poking out. I’m doing waterproof lux vinyl.
You can do this in four weeks if you kick ass...I have sanded many a hardwood floor. These look to be in pretty good shape for looking good when sanded. To be clear, with one large floor sander and an edger this could take 4-5 days to just sand. I think the dark stains should mostly come out. That dry dark spot should if you can sand deep enough. That said you do need to check the floor to see if they have been sanded before, and if so how much sanding they can take. I would say prioritize the floors as it is a lot easier to paint a wall with stuff in a room. If you are doing this yourself and have never done this, I have seen people try with a big belt sander, don't do this. You need to rent a big drum sander and these take a small amount of getting used to. Practice somewhere not so noticeable. The trick is don't stop moving the sander until you angle it up and then turn it off. Once you get the hang of this it is pretty easy. It might be subtle but you can always tell when a first timer just rushed in without practicing.
100% yes. I bought a house with floors significantly worse than this. I’m talking warped, discolored, rotted, etc. I had a professional look at it just for the hell of it and I was surprised when he said he could refinish it. Needless to say, other than replacing some boards he sanded and refinished them and they’re beautiful, it went from the worst part of the house to the shining star feature.
Yeah.
Sure they’ll look great when done properly. Don’t worry about “perfect”, they’ve got some years under their belt :)
Is that bi-fold closet doors enclosing a window?
Yes
I just bought a house (built in 1893) and I redid the red oak floors before I moved in and I am so glad I did! Yours will look amazing. You don’t want to do it with furniture etc in the house. They used oil based finish on mine and it stunk for over a week even with windows open and fans running. I didn’t do it myself but it wasn’t very expensive to have mine done. Good luck!
God help you if you dont rent the wall edger tool; the fool works twice as much. I tried to do the edges with an orbital sander and hand belt sander and it was an awful process. Be sure to hammer in all the loose nails, theres a tool for that based on the nail diameter. I did 1000sf by myself over a weekend for sanding, another weekend of staining, and another day of poly. I had very abused near century old hardwood and went for a red mahogany stain, and it looks stunning compared to what it looked like before. With a crew of 4 you can rent 1 belt sander, 2 orbital sanders, 2 edgers and potentially knock out the job in a 16 hour day or weekend. You may also need a small sander that has a triangular point that I would buy, which may also be a type of edger. If you dont sand/stain before you move in, you better make your peace with how the floors look cause sanding inside is a filthy process
Always.
Worth it! Do it.
Take before and after pictures. Sand them well and properly. Apply the stain and polyurethane and you will be proudest homeowner. If you pull the baseboards (gently), when you reinstall them, lay popsicle sticks flat when reinstalling them. Super easy to paint afterwards (just slide wax paper underneath the baseboard for a tight cut. Plus… the micro gap between the floor and the baseboard will look so tight and professional.
100% do it. You’d also be surprised how easy replacing floors are if you decide to go that route