Wood floors - how smooth?

[mrsmandm]

We've just paid someone to sand our white painted pine wooden floors back to the original wood, he put the varnish on yesterday and they're quite rough and still have flecks of white paint in where the nails are. Is this normal? Should I say something or is this the best finish I can hope for?!

Looks like the kind of half-arsed job we could have done ourselves, rather than the smooth, paint-free finish we were hoping for. :(

That sounds just like my mums floor!

Not sure if it's right or not though. Don't know if it depends on the wood.

But we did our stairs ourselves and they're as smooth a baby's bottom.

My mums is a bit rough though with a bit of paint round the nails etc. not much help I'm afraid but you're not the only one!!

Did he sink all the nails down a bit before he started? Sounds a bit shoddy tbh. Im getting mine sanded next week and paying about £17 m2 all in sanding and 2 or 3 coats of varnish - stain is extra....

I'm paying around £25 per m2 all in - think I'm being conned! My dad says it should be smooth like glass. Going to have the difficult conversation tomorrow.

Oh no - just it sounds like he messed up - I would expect pure wood, lovely and smooth...

I hate having to have these chats - I'm getting lots of work done at the moment everything from sparkies to joiners to plasters and decorators .. and floors and I hate it - you just have go on trust that they will to a good job.

DP and I have just finished sanding our floors ourselves. Whilst the finish is not as smooth as you would get from laminate or even new wooden boards, it is smooth enough to apply stain with a J-Cloth without it catching and leaving fibres on the boards. I wouldn't say the finish is like glass, and wouldn't expect that finish from old boards, but you can run your hand along the boards without fearing splinters.

Our boards were not painted, so it is hard to compare that. If the nail holes were quite deep you would not necessarily expect sanding alone to remove all the paint, but it would be possible to remove it with nitromorse and hand sanding.