Has anyone sanded/varnished a wooden floor themselves?

[LadyIronDragon]

We'd like our sitting room and hall sanded and varnished but have never tackled anything like that before. We've had one quote but the guy is messing us about a bit and the others locally are completely booked up for months...

Has anyone hired the floor sanding machines and just done it themselves? If so, any tips?

I'm quite up for it other than the fact we have 2 really small kids and we'd need to farm them out for a few days to get a decent chance at it.

[110APiccadilly]

DH did ours with a friend's belt sander. We used floor wax afterwards, which I'd rather than varnish but we're now not sure we like the finish as much!

Makes a lot of dust - worth trying to shut/seal doors to the rest of the house while you're doing it if you can - we have some special dust sheet things that can go in doorways (I'm afraid I forget what they're called) but I think even putting something against the crack at the bottom of the door might help.

[KarlKennedysDurianFruit]

Yes, DH ran into a radiator pipe with the big sander, luckily we have a plumber friend. You need a main sander and an edger. It was back breaking and so dusty but I'd do it again. Also don't varnish, it needs stripping back to redo periodically, we used osmo polyx oil, looks lovely and you can just top it up. Ours was done around five years ago and we'll probably refresh it next summer. That will just be a case of moving the furniture and brushing it on, dries over night it's not really shiny like varnish can be either

[mamaduckbone]

We did - it was hard and slightly terrifying work but worth it. Make sure there are no nails sticking up - dh broke the belt on the massive hire sander on a nail and I thought he'd killed himself - the noise when it snapped was phenomenal.

[nearlynermal]

(Might not be your thing, but in recent years I just painted my bedroom floor with white floor paint, and it looks fab. Very cheap solution, but obvs not everyone wants that look.)

[nearlynermal]

I've done both: sanded my own floor using an edging sander, and I've paid a low-dust company to sand and oil floors for me. DIY is a helluva job and very messy. If you can afford it and can find a decent firm, I'd say do that.

[MeepleMe]

I did a small room myself with hand held palm sander, wood stain then varnished it. Dust was containable as long as you're prepared to basically wipe down the entire room. However I seem to have messed up my varnish choice as it's very slippery, still not quite sure how to fix it, any advice welcome!
I used Ronseal outdoor varnish in matt after reading that polyurethane varnish is better and doesn't yellow like oil based. Wishing I had left it just with the wood stain tbh.

[zatarontoast]

Can I ask if you move into a new build with floorboards do you still have to sand them? What is this about filling in cracks? Is that not a nightmare?

[AGreatUsername]

We’ve just done both options. I paid a sander we knew through work to do 2 bedrooms, both rooms approx 4m square and was £800 (non mates rates would have been £1100). It’s certainly not cheaper than carpet.

It looked easy and I was pleased with the results, so we hired a floor sander and edge sander last weekend for the living room. It cost us £160 and was the weekend of hell. SUCH hard work. Hours on hands and knees pulling up underlay staples and hammering all nails in, then approx 6 hours of manual heavy labour using the machines, in the end my husband actually used his work orbital sander to even it up as the machine gives stripes if you’re not precise enough. Then 2 coats of hard wax oil (ours was only a temporary fix so we used some Cuprinol stuff from screw fix which was £40 for enough to do 2 coats of a 5x4 room). It looks lovely to be fair I’m so pleased. But let’s just say we decided not to do the dining room. And I wouldn’t even consider it without an industrial hoover.

[Flamingolingo]

If the floor doctor are in any way related to the tile doctor I wouldn’t be able to recommend. The latter is a franchise operation and their guy messed us around. The floor had to be re done 3x at great inconvenience

[Flatpackback]

If you are anywhere in central England try the Floor Doctor. They did my hall in a few hours & the transformation was amazing. Approx 5m x 2m,£350. No mess, no dust, worth every penny.

[Elsiebear90]

Yes, we just did this in our living room, there was bitumen on the floorboards so you get through a hell of a lot of sanding sheets as once it heats up it melts and smears. We hired a floor sander which was fairly easy, the edges were a nightmare, the edger is hard to control and left visible scuff marks because it sands in a different way to the floor sander (circular rather than on a belt) so we had to buy a belt sander and sand the edges again to blend them in. Then we bought pine slivers to fill the gaps, which was a lot of time and effort, to glue them in the chisel them down then sand them level, any smaller gaps needed filling with wood filler which was easy enough. Then we had to stain it and varnish, we used Osmo which is quite pricey.

It looks great, but it was not as cheap as I expected once everything was added up and it was a hell of a lot of effort. I’ve attached some photos and one showing what the floor looked like before.

[adagio]

We paid for downstairs rooms to be done properly, but bought a hand held belt sander to do the downstairs loo some time later. I was trying to keep costs down hence didn’t do the loo until much later. Did the whole lot Maybe 10-15 years ago? We used osmo wax-oil everywhere and to be honest it hasn’t worn well at all in the hall (oak parquet) and most used /south facing lounge (beech I think). The rarely used front room looks great though! All wood was original 1930’s. I need to redo the wax-oil with another layer but with the kids it hard to find a good opportunity - needs to be meticulously clean before a recoat I think.

I did a much better job in the loo (it’s under the stairs) than the men did in the lounges to be honest, I guess I took more time/ care. On the plus side they did a fast and dust free job - but to be fair the belt sander has a bag to catch the dust which did a reasonable job.

If I moved and needed to do again, I would probably do it myself with a hired big sander and the smaller belt sander on the edges (it was maybe £50 ish from screwfix I think, albeit years ago).

[Flamingolingo]

Nope - but I have a recommendation for someone in the Hampshire area who is very very good. We have had ~100 m^2 of parquet sanded and finished in this house for about £3k. Completely dustless using a Lagler Hummel sander plus other finishing tools and finished with Bona Traffic in ultra matt. Looks absolutely stunning

[Graffitiqueen]

It's a horrible job. I would never attempt it again.

The guy we got to sand our floor recently hardly created any dust.

[ivykaty44]

I'm in the very long lazy process of doing this (as in I have the kit and intent, just not found the motivation yet) with a belt sander- either vanishing or painting when I actual get round to it. I'm dreading it taking ages.
@Butterer it really didn’t take long, the floorboards need smoothing so they are smooth & it really didn’t take much - I bet it’s quicker than trying to dust with the hire machine floor sander

Prep well and use white spirit and it’s done in a day

[LadyIronDragon]

Wow thanks so much everyone. Lots to think about. I might try one last push to get a date from the guy messing us about and then decide.

Our quote was only £23 per m square so not dissimilar to a cheapish carpet (we've just bought a wool carpet for the stairs at £45p/sqm)

[GiraffeNecked]

Yep crikey indeed! It's the original flooring, it'll come up beautifully but it's the last thing we are going to do in big refurb...I think we may well have run out of money by then. Especially as the electrician was in yesterday tutting away.....ominous.

[GiraffeNecked]

Quoted £3.3K for a big hall and a big lounge. It's parquet so a bit fiddlier and bits of it are needing a bit of work. Straight floorboards would be a lot cheaper.

[Ridingthegravytrain]

In terms of cost I was quoted about £50per sq m to have it sanded and refinished.

We haven’t bothered as it’s too much to pay someone and I can’t face doing it myself

[Handsnotwands]

Use Osmo hardwax oil. It’s expensive but a lovely natural product that lasts for ages, and if you do need to re do it you can just stick another layer over the top. I’ve just re done a v high traffic area after 10 years. The actual application of the product takes no time at all

But yes, sanding as everyone else said 😷

[Straven123]

What is the floor like.
I tried to do a bedroom in our house built in 1890 - the stuff on the floor was shellac I think, which turned to treacle with the heat caused by being scrubbed with a sander!!! Had to abandon that.
But also did the dining room whcih had been recovered in narrow oak boards. Big sander for the middle, hand ones at the corners and edges. Looks fab 25 years later. I used varnish to seal, probably satin finish. It has worn well but is not in every day use. Not sure if varnish has changed if someone up thread said hers scratched.

I had oiled worktop in teh kitchen - never again.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

Twice. Both times with a husband. Different floors, different husbands. And they look great.

So.





Much.






Dust.

[GiraffeNecked]

We are getting a man in next time.