r/HardWoodFloors

My husband and I purchased this house built in 1935. These are the original wood floors. The tenant who lived here before lived in very questionable conditions. The house smells terrible and we’re thinking it’s coming mostly from the floor. Are these floors worth refinishing? I’d love to preserve the original wood.

I just closed on my first home at the beginning of July. The main part of the house is covered in LVP, and the bedrooms were carpet. Ripping out the carpets was one of my first tasks. Since the seller did such a poor job of carpet installation, the carpet and padding came up easily. I still have to take out nails and the carpet gripper strips.

The seller was completely insane and allowed the painters to paint directly on the floors! I am wondering if refinishing would be best done by a professional? Or is it possible for me to DIY it? I am very dismayed at the careless destruction of these floors!

Is this a good job? These contractors came with awesome reviews but there’s still gaps between the planks and some gashes/inconsistencies. I think I’m just used to seeing new hardwood with the completely smooth laminate look 😵‍💫 let me know what you think!

Just wanted to share some photos of my DIY because I’m proud of it. They’re not perfect and I’ve made a few mistakes but hey, they look pretty good to me. This is a project that I don’t think I’d take on myself again and I’m glad I’m a teacher with the summers off because I don’t know how I would have done this while working full time.

1960 Ranch with what I believe is red oak original to the home. I sanded with a drum sander, 36, 80, 120 and an orbital to go around the edges. One coat Bona ClearSeal and two coats Bona Traffic HD in satin. I sanded with an orbital palm sander after sealing at 220 grit — I do not recommend this method because it took forever but it definitely needed a sand and I didn’t feel like renting another piece of equipment.

I still have to paint (which in hindsight I should’ve done before the floors but that’s another lesson learned) and install quarter round shoe molding.

This was all carpeted, can you believe? I’m putting the before pics at the end.

I know it should be fully redone but I just do not have the money to do so, is there anything I can do in the meantime?

There is no furniture that sits over these marks. I noticed one of these squiggly lines a while ago and never thought anything of it but not there are several and much longer in length.

We had our maple floor sanded and refinished and this is how it looks today after the second coat. It doesn’t look right to me but I know nothing about floor and I was hoping someone knowledgeable on here would weigh in 😬

My wife wanted hardwood floors before we moved her grandmother's piano to our house. The quotes we got were 15k+ just for carpet removal, sanding and finishing. Any replacement would have been extra. We decided to give it a try ourselves. I think the total with rental, etc., was 6k. We learned a lot.

For the past 2 days i have been scraping linoleum from my house's original oak hardwoods. I can imagine the volume of glue they used could only have been delivered by truck.

I have tried solvents, which work well but i need to get the paper up first. Ive tried a heat gun, which doesnt do anything because the paper backing is crumbling.

Seriously back-breaking labor, i respect tf out of people who do this for a living.

I've come to realize that the elderly couple that owned my house previously are actually my personal demons and the design choices they made could only be dredged up from the fiery pits of Hell.

I added some pics of the flooring they chose to cover, and what they covered it with.

Moving out within a month and going over the home and discover some scratches... the floors are 30-40 years old and weighing the options of what I should do for these scratches..

Found this under the carpet and refinished natural. I love how it turned out. 1969 build.

Brazilian walnut. Eventually the floors will need professional refinishing. But right now I am looking to redo this room and I am wondering if there is a way to make this look better. Truth is, we have about five of these spots. This one is the Christmas tree spot. Several others are where plants leaked through containers but they look very similar. Any advice?

For clarity, the floor in the photos was treated with a single application of Bona’s Red out, 2 coats of Nordic Seal, and a single coat of Bona’s Traffic HD Satin finish. I knew I wouldn’t have the opportunity to get pictures after the final coat dried, and I hate posting pictures of a wet floor..

Anyway ! So as the title says, I was brought in to completely resand this floor and make absolute sure it wouldn’t have to be done a 3rd time. I didn’t take any pictures of the floor from the first time it was finished, but it was pretty bad. I could tell right away that most of the issues arose from inexperience with Bona’s Red Out system, and there was also quite a bit of chatter throughout the floor that had to be sanded out, but I won’t get into that..

In my experience, the red out issues usually come in the form of white splotches or lines that appear after Part B is applied and the floor has dried. I can’t say for absolute sure what causes these lines. But my theory is that in some areas, especially with older, existing floors, the Red out system draws out any salt that’s in the wood and brings it to the surface. I also believe these lines happen during the application of Red out. I’ve noticed that these lines have a tendency to show up if one has too much product on their roller/applicator, and left a trail coming off the edge. I believe it to be primarily from the application of Part A. I highly recommend dipping out of a deep paint tray, or some kind of bucket so you can squeeze out a little of the excess product. You want the floor to look uniformly wet, but you don’t want a bunch of puddles sitting on top of the hardwood. As tempting as it may be, don’t use your roller to hit the edges, and don’t roll across the wood grain. I learned this the hard way during one of my first times using the red out system. I ended up having a ton of small white spots along the walls from where the roller left heavy spots, and I was left feeling full of regret..

Continuing on, it’s important to know that these white spots are not totally avoidable, and more often than not, you will be dealing with them. All is not lost though ! There’s actually a very simple fix that removes these spots completely. Basically, these spots can be taken out with a damp rag and a little elbow grease! To be clear, if you’re applying the Red Out system, and you’re left with chalky white lines/spots AFTER Part B has been applied, they can easily be rubbed out with a dampened rag. It’s really that easy. Don’t soak the floor, but make sure your rag is wet enough to get the spots out. If you wanted the best possible results, you could even wash the entire floor to make sure you got everything. Removing these defects is absolutely crucial because Nordic Seal will highlight them and make them painfully obvious. Let me also say, there’s no going back once that Nordic seal is put down. Spot fixing Nordic Seal does not work. I’ve tried numerous times in difference scenarios and it never blended correctly. At minimum, full boards in the affected area will have to be sanded to raw wood and everything has to be reapplied.

So, I think that’s pretty much it.
Hopefully, something I’ve said here can help save another person a lot of unnecessary & avoidable labor.

We just had our hardwood floors refinished and the stain hasn’t come out as expected imo, so I’m hoping to check if there was a mismatch with my expectations or the final stain colour.

We were going for a warm mid-brown but hoping to avoid the orange of the prior stain on our floors. Our floors are white oak and the stain we picked was a 1:1 mix of special walnut and provincial by bona seal. IMO the floors came out much more orange/pink than I was expecting, which was particularly surprising to me because the floors are white oak and not red. But I’d love to hear others thoughts.

It was suggested I post here as well:

I have a relative who's upstairs neighbor had their air condition unit leak through the ceiling and create a mess. She mopped it up with a regular household cleaner but when she came back home there was this white residue on her hardwood floors. Any thoughts on what she can do? She's elderly on a fixed income so she's really not wanting to replace the flooring since she's already going to have to fix the ceiling. Advice appreciated. Sorry we don't know what chemical was in the AC.

First time doing floors to our new home. One room turned out great, while this one did not. The polyurethane seems to have picked up the stain and pooled in some places.

Is there a way to kinda "fix" it without completely sanding and redoing everything in this room?

It seems like we could sand some parts down and then do a second coat, but I don't know if that's "okay" to do.

We don't need it to look perfect.

Just looking for a realistic solution with after all the time and effort we put in.

Any advice is appreciated. Thank you.

I feel like I've won the flooring lottery. The second floor of my 1912 Foursquare is definitely pine, what do you think the first floor is?

With a home this old I had high hopes for hardwood under the carpet, but didn't expect them to look this good!

Stain suggestions? I want to keep warmth, but lighten the red tones. I'm thinking about SW Pale Oak or Muslin walls if paint color helps.

Aaahhh so excited!