Decking the Halls, Refinishing the Floors

Happy new year from the third house on the left. In this first post of 2011, we investigate refinishing the floors. Thanks to the bathroom demolition we have a number of spare extra hard wood floor slats. These are about 3/8" thick, 2" wide pieces of wood which form the top layer of our floor. We use one of these extra slats for our refinishing experiment.

The first step is to sand the wood to mechanically remove crud which has impregnated the top surface over the years. For aesthetic reasons one sands with the grain. A belt sander would be the right tool. For this experiment we simply manually sand. We attach a fine grit sand paper to a 2"x4" and sand until a virgin layer of wood is revealed. Another sanding with ultra-fine grit paper finishes the job. Behold the fruit of our labor:

The top piece is a random representative slat from our floor. The bottom specimen has been sanded. Looking good.

The next step is to try out a stain. The Mrs wants a dark stain, so we start with antique walnut. After making sure all the dust from the sanding is removed from the surface, we use a foam brush to paint half the sanded slat. We let this sit and dry overnight and then the next morning apply a second coat. In between each application of stain we lightly sand (with ultrafine paper or steel wool) the surface to smooth over any imperfections in the dry finish that might nucleate a concentration of stain in the next coat. Here is the result:

The stain was not as dark as expected, but that's probably because we're starting with a pretty light wood to begin with.

The final step is apply a protective coat. There are several options. Two popular coatings are wax and polyurethane, the latter providing a tougher finish. We choose the polyurethane. Two coatings of polyurethane (again with light sandings between coats) does the job. And we're done:

The polyurethane really brings out the grain in the unstained wood. The muddled look of the stained side is due to my poor photography: the appearance of the stained wood did not change much. The final finish is smooth to the touch and will prevent the splintering from floor boards to which we've grown accustomed at the third house from the left.

The Mrs wants an even darker finish... espresso maybe, so it's back to the drawing board!