How to get paint off a wooden floor?

[Natsku]

We're renovating and after removing several old layers of kitchen flooring (5 layers!) we got down to the original wood floor but its been painted, mostly brown but there's also lines of white paint. Been trying to get it out with various solvents, sandpaper and plenty of elbow grease but its stubborn - any better ideas? We want to get it back to its 'normal' wood colour and then varnish it.

Unless it was sealed in the first place, which sounds unlikely, it will have sunk into the wood. The only way to go is serious sanding with a machine, even then it might still show, only paler.

It does seem to have sunk into the wood. Will have to do serious sanding then, just hope the floor doesn't end up looking worse.

It will come off. It's a case of renting professional floor sanders and buying the right sanding paper for it. Alternatively, you could look at getting some new planks if the space is all taken apart at the minute.

Had a friend that's a pro come round and have a go - he says there's glue on the planks from glueing down the vinyl floor layer so the sanding machine won't work. Going to give up on that idea and just paint it a nice even colour and varnish it, will basically be the same effect anyway. Just want to move on past the floor so we can put the kitchen in!

What a palaver! Good luck ;)

Thanks! Sure it'll be worth it in the end.

if you wanted to badly enough, you could take up the boards and relay the other way up.

if you were doing all that work, you would insulate between the joists, clean out airbricks, remove the rubbish and dead rats, lag the pipes, run any new cables, and fix the boards with csk screws rather than nails, to get the most benefit. The other sides of the boards are probably in pretty fair condition and may only need to be sanded, oiled and waxed.

p.s.

not confident you can stain or paint onto a layer of old glue.

Already opened up the space from beneath to get out all the old damp insulation and put a new pipe in (old pipe had a great big hole in it)!

That's an idea though, I'll talk to OH and see what he reckons (as he'd be doing most of the work)

not confident you can stain or paint onto a layer of old glue

Oh bugger

Checked with OH, can't take up the floorboards as the nails are too deep so we can't get them up without breaking a lot of the boards (its an old house and not done in the normal floorboard way, they're very long and thing boards)

First coat done, floor looks much better already. Wasn't many colour options in the small local shop but glad I chose this red.