How to Refinish Your Hardwood Floor

With that said, if you’re still committed to refinishing your hardwood floor, versus calling in a pro, read on.
Selecting the Right Type of Hardwood Finish

The first thing you need to decide upon when refinishing a hardwood floor is the type of finish you want to see on the floor, e.g. a high gloss finish, a medium gloss finish or a flat finish.

They pretty much wear similarly so select the type of hardwood flooring finish based on your personal preference. Both polyurethane paint and varnishes are commonly used when refinishing hardwood floors and each works very well. The both come in oil and water based. Varnish, however, will yellow over time and in my opinion is slightly less durable than polyurethane. I also prefer to use water based polyurethane, or varnish, since water based products are easier to clean and have less smell. If you want to stain the hardwood floor a slightly different color you can do that too, after sanding all of the existing stain off of the hardwood floors.

Selecting the Right Hardwood Refinishing Tools

Visit your local hardware store or tool rental store and look into renting a floor sander and edge sander. They are too expensive to outright purchase so really try to rent these pieces of equipment. They’ll save you a ton of time and a lot of hand sanding and backaches.

Also pick up at the hardware store hand paint scrapers, sandpaper of coarse, medium and fine grit, polyethylene plastic, tape, brush, paint roller, and your finish of choice. Again, I prefer a polyurethane finish.

Getting to work – Refinishing Hardwood Floors First, if you don’t want to get the rest of your home dusty, section off the room with the polyethylene plastic and tape. Then sweep and vacuum the hardwood floor thoroughly. Now the fun part. Using the floor sander and a coarse grit sander, sand the main floor. The coarse sandpaper should get you to bare wood. Make sure when operating the floor sander to go in the same direction all of the time. Then repeat the process with a medium grit sandpaper, followed finally by a fine grit sandpaper. The fine grit sandpaper should leave the hardwood floor bare and smooth. Next, sand the edges of the hardwood floor using the edge sander. Make sure to not bear down too hard on the edge sander when using it and constantly keep it rotating in semi-circle type movements. Otherwise you’ll leave sanding marks.

Now use your hand scraper and small blocks of sandpaper to get into the corners where the big-boy tools couldn’t.

With the floor entirely sanded, now sweep and vacuum it again thoroughly.

Next, apply stain to the hardwood floor, if you want to stain the wood a slightly different color than its natural stain.

Allow the stain to fully dry, e.g. wait 24 hours, and then apply the polyurethane sealer or varnish sealer to it using either a brush or roller.

Let the urethane or varnish dry for 24 hours and apply a second coat to complete the project. If you want to create an extremely durable finish apply a third coat of finish.