Refinishing Hardwood Floors: What to Expect (Real Timeline, Dust, and Tips)

Our entire main floor is hardwood, including the front entry and kitchen. When we bought the house, the floors were in very rough shape. The previous owner had already deducted the cost of replacing them, so we decided to live with it for a while before tackling it.

We knew right from the start that this wasn’t going to be a simple fix. There was no “pour a bottle and wipe it away” solution for the kind of damage we had. It was going to need sanding or replacing. Because we learned so much from our experience, I thought I’d share it with you.

Can All Hardwood Floors Be Refinished?

Not all hardware can be refinished, so before getting started, it’s important to check what type of hardwood flooring you have to work with.

Older homes often have solid hardwood, which is typically about 3/4 inch thick. Floors like this can usually be sanded and refinished several times over the years because only a very thin layer is removed during sanding.

In newer homes, many floors are actually engineered hardwood. These have a thin layer of real wood on top, with a plywood or composite core underneath. Depending on the quality, that top layer can be quite thin.

Lower-cost flooring often has less real wood on the surface, which means it may not handle sanding well at all. In some cases, it can only be lightly refinished once, or not at all.

A simple way to check your flooring is by looking at an exposed edge, like a floor vent or register. This gives you a clear view of the layers and helps you see how thick the real wood surface is.

In our case, we were lucky to discover our floors were solid maple, which meant they could be refinished without any issues. It’s also helpful to know this before contacting flooring companies, as we had a couple suggest replacement when it wasn’t actually necessary.

Once we confirmed the floor could be sanded, we looked into the labour involved and the cost of renting sanders and supplies. But the real deciding factor was finding a finish to handle our big dog. The most durable type of finish for homes with dogs is a professional-grade product that isn’t available to homeowners. When I saw them working with it and the fumes from it I knew it wasn’t a DIY.

The Preparation

Before the refinishing started, we had to completely clear the main floor. That included all the furniture, including the fridge and stove. It’s a bigger job than you expect,

You also need to decide whether to remove the baseboards or leave them in place. We chose to leave ours and repaint them afterward.

If I were to do this again, I would remove all the baseboards first. The flooring company said we could leave them in place, so we did, but they ended up getting marked up during the process and we had to repaint all of them and replace a few. It would take an extra day of prep to remove and label everything so it can be put back properly, but in the end, I think it would be worth it.

All closet doors need to be removed as well, so the floors can be sanded right to the edges.

Prepare for Dust

When we put in the basement, Gyproc, you could write your name inside the entertainment center on the top floor. Gyproc dust was EVERYWHERE, and it took a couple of months and a furnace/vent cleaning to get rid of the problem.

This time, we prepared for dust as much as possible ahead of time:

We removed the drapes and artwork, and covered all the main floor light fixtures using garbage bags and zip ties.

Moving everything in the pantry would have been a nightmare, so we took a shortcut and covered both the shelves and the contents. Dust wouldn’t hurt sealed items, but cleaning everything afterward would be a huge job. We wrapped the pantry items in plastic bags first, then covered the entire closet with large plastic tablecloths for extra protection.

We also stuffed the heat vents with rags, sealed off the rest of the house with tarps and command strips, and closed every door we could.

Once all the preparation was done, we were ready to move on to the actual refinishing process. It was a fair amount of work, but still only a small fraction of the hassle we went through cleaning up the Gyproc dust.

Choosing the Colour

Turns out our floors were a good quality 3/4 inch solid maple. Even though they were extremely worn, the sanding process only removes about 1/16 of an inch from the surface, so they were still in great shape to refinish.

This was great news, and at $2.90 a square foot, it was about a quarter of the cost of installing new floors of the same quality. On Uptown Hardwood’s recommendation, we skipped staining and left the wood colour natural. It allows the grain to show through and keeps the room feeling light and airy.

The Refinishing

Uptown Hardwood sanded all the floors using three different grades of sandpaper. This was our first glimpse of the natural wood underneath all that damage.

After sanding, they applied a fill coat for the cracks between the hardwood, followed by a sealer coat, and left them overnight to cure.

The next day, the refinishers returned to apply two coats of a more durable, professional-grade moisture-cure polyurethane I mentioned before. Unlike regular polyurethane, it only comes in a glossy finish, but that was the look I wanted. It’s also much more durable and less likely to scratch, which made it a great choice for us, especially with a dog in the house. It cost about $150 more, but it was well worth it.

Once the coatings started going on, we made sure not to stay in the house. The fumes are very strong, even with proper ventilation and the masks the contractors wear.

We were able to come and go while they were sanding the floors, but we didn’t stay long because of the noise. Once the refinisher started applying the coatings, we stayed out completely. The fumes are incredibly strong, so you should plan to be out of the house for at least a couple of days while the coatings are applied and the air clears. We ended up spending two nights in a nearby hotel while the house aired out.

We were able to come and go while they were sanding the floors, but we didn’t hang around. If you want to stay home during this process its noisy but not too bad. Once the refinisher starts applying the coatings, don’t be in the house.  The fumes are incredibly strong, even with the masks they wear.  We spent two nights in a nearby hotel while the house aired out.

Letting the Floors Cure and Harden

We were told it was safe to walk on the floors after about 24 hours, and to move furniture back in with scratch guards after 48 hours. However, the finish takes about a week to fully cure.

Hubs was the only one walking on the floors in the first 48 hours, and even then, we were careful. It’s important to give the coating time to harden, especially with the dog, so we waited a full week before moving the furniture back. We survived living between the upper floor and the garage.

We are so excited about our new floors; we absolutely love them. We did not ask for or receive a discount or payment from Uptown Hardwood Flooring in Edmonton, but I highly recommend them. They were honest, and our floors look wonderful without having to replace the wood.

Now that all the furniture is out, we’re taking the opportunity to paint the ceilings and walls this week.

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