My favorite thing about floors being refinished is how absolutely gorgeous they are afterwards!

We did it ourselves at our Fort Worth home back in the early 1990s. At that point the hardwood floors were 50 years old and really needed it. I could not believe how much more beautiful they looked when we were done. They looked brand new! Shortly after we redid our floors, my brother and his wife paid someone to redo their floors for them. Again, the improvement was amazing.

My mom is now in the process of having all her wall-to-wall carpet removed and then she is going to have her 63-year-old hardwood floors refinished.

It is such a messy process with all the sanding involved, and it is all but impossible to live in the house while you are doing it, because there is sawdust everywhere. Of course, when the polyurethane is going on the floor, the fumes are really something else. We lived in my brother's rent house while the floors were being re-finished. If we had know how hard it was and how long it would take us to do it, I think we would have paid someone else to do it, though.

I think it is smart to be away on vacation while they are doing it. :)

Our old hardwood floors were pretty dark. After we sanded them, they were significantly ligher so we left them their original color--they were red oak and were so lovely. We applied a clear polyurethane finish.

My brother's floors have a light golden oak stain, and I don't think my mom has decided yet what color she'll go with.

I don't have any disaster stories for you....it was a great experience and we learned a lot from it, but I don't ever want to "do it yourself" like that again.

Dawn

I realize that few people do this any more, but hand rubbed waxed hard wood floors are so much nicer, but they have to be rewaxed and buffed at least yearly along with being touched up, between times, if any deep cleaning needs to be done on the floors.

A 1000 square foot or smaller home is fairly easy to maintain with hardwood floors that are waxed, but I can also see how a larger area, bathroom, and kitchen/dinette floors would be almost too difficult to maintain as this kind of waxed hardwood floors.

Katrina,

When I was a kid in the 1960s, that is exactly how my parents and many of our neighbors maintained their hardwood floors--with Johnson Paste Wax. We even had a floor buffer that helped us keep a lovely shine on the wood floors.

When DH and I bought a home in my parent's neighborhood in 1984, we used to borrow their buffer every now and then to give our wood floors that highly-buffed sheen.

After a few years, though, we finally polyurethaned the floors. The polyurethaned floors never looked as good to me as those with a paste wax shine, but they were SO much easiser to maintain.

I can still remember the smell of Johnson paste wax--it was a smell I liked--a 'clean' smell!

Dawn

The floors are done!!!! They look gorgeous. They got out all the stains, but they couldn't/didn't get out a couple of scratches. I haven't had an opportunity to talk to the floor guy yet. We still need to do a key/check swap.

Wow, they told me everything would be really dusty, and they weren't kidding! Every spiderweb showed up in 3-D with an inch of sawdust coating it....and the chandelier and ceiling fans....oh it was AWFUL! But I got the worst of it cleaned up. I still need to work on the walls a little and then at least set up my "purple" bedroom so I can move back in. I want to paint the other bedroom and lvg/dining rooms before I fully move in.

They called me on vacation and told me they were having problems getting the varnish to dry, but it was dry by the time I got home...but I've been walking in bare feet to minimize dirt tracking just in case.

I'll try to take pics and get them posted so I can show the floors off :)

Lisa

Lisa,
Congratulations on your new floor! I'm sure you are sooo happy to have them done. I can't wait to see pictures. BTW, did you have a great vacation?!
Dawna

Lisa,

Congratulations on the beautiful 'new' floors! I'm looking forward to seeing the pictures too.

I remember all that dust, and the memory is not a pleasant one. At least it is all done!

Hope the vacation was fun and relaxing too.

Dawn

Well, I'm half moved in :) But I grabbed some pics to show you:

And finally...I get to sleep in my own bed!

Lisa

Lisa,

The floors are gorgeous! Aren't you thrilled with your 'new' floors? I bet it feels great to get settled back in again.

I am glad the home improvement project was so successful. Your house looks terrific!

Dawn

Thanks everybody! Oh, and the vacation was a lot of fun too! Lots and lots of pool time :) We did have two rainy days, but they weren't near as bad as I heard it was in OKC. I came home to find 4.5 inches in my rain gauge.

I'm sitting on a slight hill, but I'm afraid my house may yet float away, I've found water in the garage on the inside wall twice. It must be coming from underneath the house through the crawl space access. I found fresh water again yesterday after the morning rain. It wasn't a lot, but enough to make me a little uneasy!

Lisa

Lisa,

When we lived in Fort Worth we were in the middle of a long sloping hill.

One year in the 1980s it rained a lot, similar to this year, and we had standing water on the uphill side of our house. I guess the house foundation was acting like a dam holding that water. The water came into the kitchen one day by apparently seeping through the area where the wall and the floor met. Only a small amount came in, and after that one time it never happened again. Apparently such seepage happens every now and then. We did NOT have water in the crawl space then, at least not visible standing water, but we had it on the kitchen floor. We wiped up the water and no permanent damage was done.

So, maybe the water in your garage will be a one-shot thing and won't happen again after this one episode.

Dawn

PF Hardwood Floor Cleaner and Polish are the best on the market when it comes to cleaning your floors to make them look just like they did the day they were installed!

Here is a link that might be useful: Palmetto Floor Care