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Property/DIY

Sanding floors/painting at same time - feasible?

10 replies

Oodle · 22/02/2011 17:34

We've just bought a house and are completing shortly, but as we are currently renting we are going to overlap rent and mortgage for a week to enable us to do a bit of DIY. We want to paint pretty much the whole house (except halls), resand and revarnish the floors in living room and downstairs hall (currently a dark ginger colour) and paint the floor in the main bedroom!

We complete on the Thursday and we are hoping we can get started on the Thursday pm but more likely the Friday morning. Plan was to start with the sanding, then move on to the painting. Some friends are going to come over on the Sat and Sun to help us paint. But I imagine the sanding will take at least two days. So, can we sand downstairs while painting upstairs at same time? Or will dust blow up even if doors shut? Or should we paint first?

I also want to paint the kitchen cupboards - will post about that separately.

Can we do it in the timescale? It's a Victorian terrace, 4 beds. Are we insane?

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Fiddledee · 22/02/2011 17:38

yes you are insane

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Shallishanti · 22/02/2011 17:42

NOOOOO

sanding and painting TOTALLY incompatible

unless you want a textured effect!

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Shallishanti · 22/02/2011 17:46

IME, you can sand and varnish a large floor in 2 person days
day1- one person sands all day
day 2 one person varnishes all day, using water soluble varnish that dries quickly

may be faster if floor is already sanded, and you are re doing it, or if the floor is smaller

longer if floor has horrific dark brown melty gunk painted on it

am talking large victorian terrace, here

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noddyholder · 22/02/2011 18:52

Do the sanding and varnishing.get rid of the dust and do not paint until you have been there a while

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Oodle · 22/02/2011 18:58

Oh god really?! Thought we were being a bit optimistic but didn't realise quite how much. What about painting first and then sanding last two days before we move in? Surely paint will be dry by then? We want to exploit our workforce (eg friends and family) at the weekend if at all possible!

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noddyholder · 22/02/2011 19:01

The sawdust flies everywhere no matter how good the sander.Paint will be dry ish but not dry enough to hoover the sawdust off it

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Oodle · 22/02/2011 19:31

The trouble is, once our three kids and all our crap is in the house, I can't imagine we're going to get anything done. Will be so much easier to tackle it when it's empty (and kids with my mum or at school).

So if we sand on Friday, varnish on Saturday, could we not start painting (in other rooms of course) also on Saturday?

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Shallishanti · 22/02/2011 20:23

mmm, probably, but you'd want to hoover v thoroughly first. You are right about doing it while the house is empty, be aware also the dust can set off asthma

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ViolaTricolor · 22/02/2011 21:53

You can paint round all your stuff much more easily than you can sand floors after moving in. Do the sanding before you move in and then paint later, as others have said. We have recently been through all this, but were lucky that we could leave the place empty for a bit longer.

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KristinaM · 23/02/2011 01:13

You need several coats of varnish to get a decent looking hard wearing finish. Drying time between coats depends on the type of varnish

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