How to Refinish Hardwood Floors _ The Home Depot

With the right tools , you can easily refresh your hardwood floors yourself .

Follow these steps to get your floor looking like new .

Here's a list of the tools and materials you'll need before you start , you can rent all of the Sanders at a Home Depot to a rental center .

Next , you'll need to determine whether your floors need to be refinished or refurbished .

If they're dirty but not worn through to bare wood , then you can refinish your floors .

If they're actually damaged , then they may have to be refurbished .

Now that we've determined our floors just need to be refinished .

It's time to get started .

Begin by prying off the shoe molding , which runs along the floor so that your sander doesn't hit it or you can remove the base molding if there's no shoe molding .

Next nail , any loose floorboards into the floor joist using eight D finishing nails to fix any squeaks , fill any holes with latex wood putty .

After you've secured loose floorboards , prepare your space for sandy sanding , generates a lot of dust .

So be sure to seal doorways and ducks with plastic sheeting and masking tape .

In order to choose the right sander determine the condition of your flooring .

If the floor is badly worn , begin with a drum sander .

Use a vibrating sander .

If it needs only minor refinishing .

Since our floors need a little more work , we will start with a drum sander and a coarse sandpaper grit like 36 or 40 then graduate to 60 grit .

Keep in mind that this tool may take some time to get used to .

You may even want to practice on a sheet of plywood .

Move the sander with the grain along the length of the floorboards covering 3 to 4 ft strokes at a time overlap strokes by at least one third of the belt width to manage scratch marks as well as dust and debris left behind by the sandpaper sweep and vacuum between sanding and before switching grits .

Because drum Sanders can leave an uneven surface , consider fine sanding with a vibrating sander to level the floor if you're using both tools , save the finer grits for use with the vibrating sander and finish with a finer grit like 80 or 100 .

Next use an ed sander with 80 grit paper to tackle corners , small closets and other narrow spaces that larger Sanders can't reach to finish tight spaces like corners .

Use a random orbit sander .

It's easier to control and moves at a slower pace than an edge sander .

So you are less likely to get gouges after sandy vacuum , the dust and wipe the floor with a tack cloth , then apply a wood stain with a foam applicator pad , working with the grain , remove excess stain as you go with clean cotton cloth or paper towels .

Finally apply a finish with a lamb's wool applicator .

After the stain has dried , apply three or four coats , sanding lightly with a 2 20 grip paper between each coat of finish .

Hardwood floors are a gorgeous part of any home and with right care , you can refinish them to their original beauty .

And thank you for shopping at the Home Depot .