sanding floor... any advice

[chloeb2002]

Ok we live in sunny Brisbane.. We bought a great house two years ago and were told when we bought it that there were Cyprus pine floor bods under the lovely 1970's carpet. I have begun pulling up all the carpets and the boards are lovely. a deep hardwood red and smooth, but need sanding to neaten them up and to remove paint splatters etc. I then intend varnishing them using a water based varnished (satin). I am concerned about fumes, hence water based although it costs allot more that oil based. ( I am 33 weeks pregnant, radical nesting?) Dh can do the dusty sanding bit but I have no idea how long it takes, so how long or how many days to hire the sander for. Can we sand all the floors at once and then varnish as we go along, which may take a few weeks. I am dreading the mess. i figure i will move everything from the rooms into one big room.. then sand.. and replace stuff before doing the big room. I know its worth the agro!.. I hope... Do i need to punch down all the floor nails.. even if they are flush now?

Any advice...hints etc..

I hired someone to sand my floor as it was rented property and I felt too nervous about doing it myself, I did varnish it though which was a doddle!
Our guy took two days to sand our living room/ diner and two bedrooms on our small cottage which isn't huge! I think the edges are quite time consuming which you need a different sort of sander for, beware of radiator pipes, my Brother in law cut through one of his when doing his floor.,, Good luck!

Hire someone. Some jobs are just worth paying the money and this is one of them. A professional will have an expensive dust free machine and the quality of the finished job will be much better.

YY to hiring someone.

I agree with the others - get someone in. I've done floors myself and it's a hideous job. We recently got someone in to do our living room and hall. It took one and a half days to prepare the floorboards, fill the gaps, sand and varnish. I'm sure it would have taken us twice that for a worse result.