How To Repair Hardwood Floor After Removing Wall

Hardwood flooring restoration tin can exist very challenging. Specially later on years of pes traffic, dropped items, scratches from bedposts, fires, and floods take left behind all sorts of damage. For u.s.a., refinishing the hardwood floors in our habitation meant dealing with all those things.

Over the final century, these floors have seen everything. I still insisted on salvaging them because they were the only historical pieces left in the entire firm and I did not have the center to tear them out.

Luckily, oak is the type of forest that tin can stand the exam of time. If you can find old oak floors, the likelihood of restoration is high!

Even if you call up your hardwood floors are beyond repair, you may be able to breathe life back into them with some of our tips and instructions.

Permit's take a look!

HARDWOOD Floor RESTORATION: TRYING TO Encounter By THE DAMAGE

I honestly hesitated to post the 'before' photos of our one-time wood floor.

They were actually that bad.

The floor in the kitchen was beyond restoration (and then they said). Nosotros found evidence of a flood, a fire, and a DIY attempt that went wrong. Whoever attempted to restore these floors gave up midway. They tossed down a 1/4 inch of leveling chemical compound, some linoleum, and called it a day.

Equally soon as nosotros sat this, we knew forest floor restoration would testify to exist a challenge.

Equally for our living room, it was in slightly better shape, only it even so had its issues. The boards that we replaced in the living room had cracked with fissures of black charcoal. They didn't look like charcoal… they were charcoal.

How something burned downward that much and didn't burn the entire business firm down is beyond me, but here nosotros are.

The firm yet stands.There were also:

• Scratches
• Gouges
• Raised nails
• Cigarette burns
• Permanent mark

Oh, my. It took a total month to repair all the damage before we could even commencement sanding.

True story!

HOW TO RESTORE Forest FLOORS

When it was all said and done, we decided to move forward and documented our whole journey when it came to our hardwood floor restoration.

And, judge what? We lucked out!

Our bedroom floor was a combination of 2 different types of hardwood flooring. It had both ane 1/2 oak boards which matched the living room and iii.v-inch boards that matched the kitchen. Since we had to pull up all the miss-matched boards, it made sense to use them to supplant the damaged hardwood in the residuum of the house.

That was my married man'southward genius idea. He's a keeper!

Though, he probably regrets that thought.

Piece of communication: If you have damaged boards that need replacing, you may be able to take some from an inconspicuous area like a closet.

~This mail may contain affiliate links.  If you lot click ane and make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no additional cost to you.~

1. DETERMINE WHICH FLOORBOARDS Demand TO BE REPLACED

Nosotros started our repairs by marking the damaged floorboards that we could not refinish. After a conscientious inspection of each lath, we realized nosotros would demand to replace thirty% of the kitchen boards. A piece of cake right?

I plant a few tutorials online about replacing a single board merely couldn't meet any that did what nosotros were most to do.

Do y'all know why there are no tutorials? It'southward not the best way to exercise it.

If you lot install the boards incorrectly, you risk the integrity of the entire floor. Forest floors need to breathe. They need to be able to contract in wintertime and expand in the summer. Install them too tight and your boards will pull or warp.

Nosotros took our time and did each footstep carefully. It was fourth dimension-consuming, but it paid off in the cease.

two. REMOVE THE Cleaved BOARDS

We started with a drill and a chisel and let me tell you- The work was slow going. We had to be conscientious not to damage the wood that was remaining but chiseling information technology all out was going to take far too long. That lasted an 60 minutes before nosotros gave upward and made the 2-hr bulldoze to the city to go a mini saw.

With the mini saw, we were able to cut out large inside portions of flooring. Subsequently nosotros cut out all the boards we could, nosotros used the chisel and hammer to pry out the remaining parts of the boards.

Let me tell you lot… Hardwood floor restoration is irksome work. You lot accept to work around the nails and pull them out without damaging the edge of the remaining boards. Without the border, the replacement boards have nothing to grab.

Once the old boards were upward, and the floors cleaned, the new boards slid into place for us without any issues!

Nosotros did take to use mucilage in some spots. We tried to avert doing that as much equally we could.

Since the hardwood floors demand room to expand and contract, I didn't know for certain what effect the glue would have. But, on sections where we had no lip to secure the lath, we had no option.

Later on a year of living with these floors, we haven't had any problems. Nosotros haven't had any boards lift, or shift or even warp.

3. CHOOSE YOUR SANDER

When it came time to sand down the floorboards, nosotros used a pulsate sander. There is a lot of data on the internet about the pros and cons of both the pulsate sander and the orbital floor sander (not to be dislocated with your handheld orbital). I can tell yous that we've used both in this firm and I loved the drum sander.

The drum sander did its job and did it quickly. It was also fun to use! I sanded the floors myself with no prior experience and was pretty pleased with the outcome. The start pass had me in awe of the drum sander.

This picture is blurry, simply I added it so you could see how much flooring the drum sander removes in a single pass. This photograph shows our get-go pass over the worst parts of the kitchen flooring.

Notation: If you don't empty the bag, it will kick upwards a lot of sawdust.

Don't fright the drum sander!

The orbital, on the other manus, made me pitch a fit. Never in my life have I been that frustrated. I tin't fifty-fifty look at an orbital floor sander without giving information technology the stink eye for a full minute.

The orbital floor sander was slow. And so boring. Painfully slow. It took me 4 hours to get the same amount of flooring off that the drum sander did in one laissez passer.

Just listen to me – get the drum sander.

Did we go out drum sanding marks on the floors? Yes, we did. Did I care? No.

The restored hardwood floors look rustic, and the few dings that we did make with the sander didn't matter. They are non at all noticeable unless y'all get down there to await.

4. HOW TO SAND YOUR HARDWOOD FLOORS

We used iv unlike grits when nosotros sanded the floor, starting with 40 for the kitchen.

40 is like using small precipitous rocks to remove a good bargain of wood and scratch the hell out of everything. We used that grit to level the kitchen floors and remove the leveling chemical compound. It worked similar a amuse!

Regular floors don't need to outset at forty. If your hardwood boards are as bad as ours were and you need to remove a lot from the top, 40 is the way to outset.

It's important to note that you need to know the thickness of your floors. Our floors were 3/4 inch and had no evidence of prior sanding. We could take a lot off the top before the oak couldn't handle any more than sanding.

We did four dissimilar passes with four various grits. Each fourth dimension the floors revealed more than of their beauty. It kept getting meliorate and meliorate.

5. DON'T FORGET TO SAND THE EDGES

After we finished sanding the floorboards, we rented the sanding edger to sand down all of the edges. You need this sander to reach the areas where the drum sander tin can't reach. The floor sander leaves about a 4-inch rim around your floors that yous will have to sand.

You could attempt it with a standard orbital, but I can tell you from experience- that'south a bad idea. The drum sander removes a lot of flooring. Yous would have to be on your hands and knees for a long time trying to lucifer the levels.

The edger does this in a few passes. Information technology'due south magical!

It took the states eight hours to sand and edge 400 foursquare anxiety. We had to practice iv full passes with the sander and the edger.

half dozen. PREP YOUR NEWLY RESTORED HARDWOOD FLOORS FOR STAINING

Sawdust was EVERYWHERE. Seal your rooms if you are going to do this and save yourself two months of cleaning.

I recommend a quick clean up afterwards sanding to go the bulk of the sawdust out, give everything a good sweep, and leave it until morning.

If you lot do the detailed prep work the same day, I can guarantee you're going to have more than sawdust settle overnight. You lot will end up cleaning everything again a second time.

Cause that's what happened to us.

We spent 2 solid hours of make clean up. Swept, vacuumed everything including the walls and ceilings. Wiped downwardly everything with a tack fabric. I idea I would get up in the morning and starting time applying the stain.

That'south not what happened.

So much dust settled that I had to practice it all over again.

You need to ensure all the dust is gone because yous don't desire particles in your stain or sealer. It's a tedious job but one that will make or break your concluding finish.

seven. STAIN THE HARDWOOD FLOORS

This is my favorite part of the hardwood flooring restoration: staining!

So, staining the hardwood floors was a simple job. I mentally blocked off 4×10 areas, applied my stain, waited 10 minutes and removed information technology with a make clean rag.

I repeated this process until I finished the unabridged floor. It went quickly and information technology was astonishing to watch the oak floorboards modify color.

We thankfully didn't need two coats of stain. One coat gave us the finish I wanted! We used Minwax Night Walnut and it applied like a dream. It gave the states a beautiful mid warm brown finish.

I loved information technology!

Dark hardwood floors need constant cleaning to wait adept because they show every single spec of dust. They were not my kickoff choice.

And so why did we become with the dark stain?

It hid every single minor imperfection. Small gaps, tiny burn marks, even the dings from the sander vanished later on applying the stain. It was like magic.

Dark stain + former floors = magic.

We permit the stain dry out for 24 hours before applying our sealer.

8. Add THE SEAL TO YOUR 'NEW' FLOORS

Sealing the floors was the best office of this hardwood floor restoration. Calculation the seal added a layer of smoothen that brought out the woods in the most magnificent style.  You tin can meet in the photo below how the sealer changes the await of the wood. Half the floor was sealed when I stopped to take this picture show.

Nosotros opted to use a h2o-based polyurethane. We needed access to the house once again and this polyurethane stale the fastest. The polyurethane nosotros used was also low VOC, and it didn't stink to high sky. It did smell bad, just not every bit bad as most polyurethanes. We used Minwax low VOC semi-gloss polyurethane and it worked great.

I used a stain sealer on a broomstick and each pass only took about 30 minutes.

Note: You do need to be careful with the sealing pad. As well much pushing with too much sealer on the pad will create bubbles. I exercise have bubbles on my flooring, just you can't see them. I can run into them because I know they are there and they annoy me!

Save yourself that hassle by going slow and not soaping up the polyurethane.

We were able to become three coats of our h2o-based poly on in 24 hours. Information technology was dry and hot outside, and the sealer was drying for us pretty quick.

OUR HARDWOOD Flooring RESTORATION: THE BEFORE & AFTER

Tin can you believe they are the aforementioned hardwood floors?  The later photos all look like dissimilar colors, merely all the floors are a warm brownish like the very last picture. When I took these photos, I was using a potato.

Was it worth it? Yep! I love my floors!

It cost us 1.00 (Canadian) a foursquare foot for the sander rentals, sandpaper, stain, and polyurethane.

They are not 100% perfect, just I'm okay with that. These restored hardwood floors have a rustic amuse that adds a lot of personality to the firm.

If you're sitting on hardwood floors that are covered up by linoleum or carpeting, you lot should have a peek. You lot might not accept to repair anything. Your floors might only demand a refinishing chore.

Although our hardwood floors took months to restore, the actual sanding, staining, and sealing happened over one single long weekend.

If you enjoyed this wood floor restoration, take a peek at this $500 kitchen restoration we did in our home. If you have any questions near our flooring restoration, feel gratuitous to drop me an email or leave a comment!

Source: https://www.littleyellowwheelbarrow.com/restoring-hardwood-floors/

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