Do these floorboards look shite?

[GreengrassofW]

Days and days of sanding but i think they still look grubby and shite. Would you paint or varnish? I think if i sand them anymore I'll lose my mind

You definitely need the upright ''lawnmower'' type- it pulls you along - but you need to bash every nail 3mm below the surface or they tear the belt sander strips.

@GreengrassofW do persevere, they will look utterly fabulous.

How gorgeous are your Victorian rooms.

Have a read here

then hire this

Paint them black or a dark stain.

Have you turned em arseside up and established they aren't unused on the underside?

Many years ago in our first home, DH had a week off work because our honeymoon was cancelled, He spent the week sanding a room and nearly wore through his wedding ring. I looked after newborn DS and ate an entire tier of wedding cake-- DH is very much of the opinion he will do DIY himself if he can, but he decided to pay for someone professional to do the other rooms. I've no idea how much time and money you have, but it might be worth considering.

I've just had a Facebook reel pop up that shows someone sandblasting floorboards. It's like magic!

@beetr00 thanks for this - looks like the right tool for the job!!
@tolerable no I haven't that would've been smart
@ExtraVotes thank you for this, yours look gorgeous and it's lovely you can see so much grain coming through. These do feel quite smooth yes, (as smooth as you can get with 40 grit), yes they feel quite level. I was going to put some filler in the gaps later on :) :)

@LynetteScavo Yeah paying someone else would have been smart but my budget is v low sadly.
I was thinking "at least this is a job I can do myself..."

You could hire a proper floor sander for the day? Thats usually not expensive. HSS hire or similar. I think more sanding is definitely needed.

The hire sanders are awful, they’re an absolute menace to work with. I follow a guy on instagram called Dannysandhouse who does people’s floors and has started selling sanding pads because he says the stuff you get from the hire place is expensive and poor quality. Depending how long you’ve got to finish the job, might be worth checking him out.

We did all our downstairs last year. We do a lot more DIY than your average household but we swore never again. We have the stairs and landing left which can be done with a belt sander but anything bigger we’ll be paying someone. It’s by far the worst job I’ve done and I think hiring’s a false economy because the paper is so expensive and you blaze through it!!

Just keep going, if you can get them totally sanded back, which you can with (more) hard work, they will look amazing.

Oh nooo.
It's gonna look fantastic when finished.

@rrrrrreatt they are an absolute menace !! Danny Sandhouse is great!

• One of the walk around machines I borrowed from Jewsons was so badly tuned and over sensitive it was a joke. Paper bags for sawdust collection are an absolute joke too! What happened to fabric bags, probably some health and safety BS.

The floorboards in what is now our spare room, were a nightmare to sand.
Covered in Bitumen, the room had been used as a kitchen at some point, and shit ceramic tiles stuck down directly on top of the boards.
OH did his best with sanding them, but gave up in the end trying to get them looking perfect, and just varnished them.
They're not brilliant, but the varnish helps hide a multitude of sins!

We have a double bed in there too which also hides a multitude of sins!

They look just fine to me 😊

They would sand up beautifully you need one of the big belt ones you walk behind
if you’ve already done this you need to go diagonal heavy grit down to fine
they will come up like new

I think it looks cool but I love distressed wood.

There was an America 'wild west' style restaurant when I was a kid with rough, scratched up, stained, mismatched, distressed wood 'saloon' style floors and I always thought it was the coolest look.

I love the Danny Sandhouse love on this thread. I think he is hilarious.

I wish he would would use knee pads and masks a bit more but I am a huge fan otherwise.
His choice of clothing is as interesting as his floors. He is brilliant.

This is one of the jobs where I use a professional with the right equipment. Did you get a price for just sanding alone? You could apply the finish yourself.

I wonder if he knows he’s got a little Mumsnet fan club 🤣

I agree on a mask but I get why he doesn’t use knee pads - I have them but hate how they feel! I use a garden kneeling pad instead, I’ve got one just for indoors and it’s getting good use right now whilst I fill, prime and paint all our skirting.

I wish this thread was on a bit earlier, when I wondered what to do with my floorboards! I even asked for advice here, but didn’t get much response. The floorboards in my attic were just like that, covered in brow stuff (anpparently not bitumen though) and very undulated. It would have been hard or impossible to sand them fully. I had professionals do it, I wouldn’t even try. They used a smaller machine, maybe with a huge sander it would have worked, but they weren’t keen and gave me no guarantee, so I decided to save money. We discussed an option to stain and varnish them, the effect could have been like yours, @ExtraVotes and @pinklemonsparkle . They were meant to make a sample, but they painted them all white (the alternative option) right away… I guess it was a misunderstanding, because layer one said that he’d have liked them distressed looking (!). Anyway, it’s just an attic, hardly used, so the white boards will probably last well for some time; and it looks fine there.

I think painted boards seem to work in low traffic areas @PinkCamelias I bet they look lovely.

For the price we were quoted by a professional I could afford to buy a professional sander and dust extraction unit . (Festool) and have plenty of money left over.

@Doingthework "I’ve been following this guy on instagram for tips and inspiration danny_sandhouse"

He's also on youtube.

By the way, @GreengrassofW "100 year old pine floorboards with decades and decades of bitumen."

"I am purely using the edger because I've tried 2 belt sanders and they don't seem to touch the bitumen."

Something to consider might be a Metabo paint remover - the small handheld device shown in part of this short video from the guy above. It doesn't use sandpaper but is a router with blades.

Prices between £240 - £290, or around £20-25 per day to rent

(Also, you can hire vacuums so that you can attach these devices to them which will reduce the amount of dust in the air.)

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/APKB5JvEPoE