Restoring wood floors

[Botherfreedays]

We've had some quotes to have floorboards restores in a bedroom - sanded, gaps filled, repairs etc. It seems there are some very different techniques around, one uses the dust mixed with resin to fill the gaps and small slices of wood for larger gaps, another uses rubber strips that blend in. Does anyone have any thoughts on which is best? There is no great difference in terms of price. Thanks.

Bumping this

Back in 2006 we hired a belt sander from Machine Mart for a couple of days, bought some suitable face masks and got stuck in ourselves. We used a small handheld sander for the corners which the belt sander wouldn't quite get close enough to. Was quite therapeutic seeing the fruits of your labour - especially when bringing an original floor back into daily use (rather than carpeting over the top of it). We put several coats of a suitable Ronseal varnish over the top and mixed some of the collected sawdust with varnish to fill the odd gap (very little was required though). Absolutely loved that floor and it's one thing I don't like about having a 'new build' now. Concrete floors / no character. I would happily pay someone to do the messy work these days though (we never thought about paying someone else to do it at the time because it was 'our project').

Much of a muchness I think. We've got some very gappy floorboards and one of the best solutions I've found is jute twine / rope stuffed into the gaps. It looks quite well hidden among the 1930s pine. Good at sealing draughts too, so long as it's a tight fit.

We did the dust with resin thing in the gaps and loads of it has fallen through already (less than a year) so I'd be tempted to try the rubber strips, though don't have any experience of them.

We tried the rubber pipe type stuff that comes with a plastic roller. Very expensive but worked fairly well. Prefer the jute rope though as it's less visible and the texture of the rope means it is grippier.