We live in a house built in 1924 with beautiful oak hardwood floors. They are the old style 2-inch planks and had been covered with carpet for many years. We are heavy duty DIY-ers and were a bit afraid of the floors, but honestly they were one of the easiest projects we have done!
1. Get up the carpet and ALL the tack strips, nails, staples, etc. Anything left on the floor will tear up your sanding pads. A good way to check if you've gotten it all is to put on socks and slide around the floor, systematically going across the whole thing.
2. If you can, take off the baseboards. Our baseboards are 8 inches high, so we did not take ours off. We ended up putting up small trim boards after the floors were done to finish it off. You can use this or quarter-round if you don't want to take off your existing baseboards.
3. Clean the floor thoroughly of any glue or tape residue (if there is any). Paint, stains, etc, will come up with sanding but anything sticky will gum up the works.
4. Block off every surface you don't want dusty with heavy plastic and painter's tape. Windows, doors, doorways (you can cut a slit for getting in and out of the room) - don't forget to tape off outlets and light switches and to cover light fixtures. Also, tape the plastic on all sides... the little fine dust from the final sanding will get EVERYWHERE!
5. Sanding! Since you are new to this, you'll want to use a pad sander, NOT a belt sander! It's too easy to scar up the floors with a belt and the other is almost as fast once you get used to it. We rented ours from Home Depot and bought all the pads and sand paper there. Get more than you think you will use! You can always return unused pads and paper. You will want three grits: a coarse, medium and fine. Consult with the rental place on what specific grits to buy, as it will depend on the type of wood and its condition.
When you sand, go slowly but evenly. Wear goggles and a mask. Do one or two passes with each grit of paper, starting with the coarsest and going to the finest. It helps if someone can go behind the person sanding with a shop vac to suck up the bulk of the dust. Even with a bag or catcher it will generate a lot. Between each sanding pass, suck up as much dust as you can. This will go quicker than you think! We did two rooms (about 700 square feet), all three grits of paper, in about three hours.
6. Clean! Suck up as much dust as you can with a shop vac (you'll ruin a regular vac, so don't use one). Using damp towels, wipe down every inch of the room, concentrating on the floor. This will take some time and you WILL want knee pads! Take your time, rinse or switch out towels often, and get all your surfaces while things are still taped off. At this point, if you don't have small children or pets who will wander in, you can remove the tape and plastic.
Allow the floor to dry thoroughly. This is where the timing will start to vary for you. Here in Salt Lake, things dry VERY quickly and we were able to stain and seal (three coats) in about four hours.
7. Stain! This step is optional. If you liked the color of the floors just after wiping them down, this is what they will look like sealed. If you want them darker, you'll want to stain first. We used a water-based stain that dries quickly. Do a few feet at a time and tag-team if you can. One person can pour a small amount of stain on the floor, then the second can spread it with a foam applicator. You'll want your knee pads for this as well. Leave it on for a bit (depending how dark you want it), then wipe it off. We used the "rags in a box" - they're like heavy-duty paper towels with no lint. Pay attention to where you leave off so as not to overlap a lot or you'll get darker spots. Let it dry thoroughly, then do a second coat if it's not dark enough. This took about half an hour for us, again your time may vary.
8. Seal, seal seal. Again, we used a water-based sealer and only waited an hour between coats. The more coats you do now, the more time you can go before having to redo the floors. We have pets, so we did four coats. Home Depot sells a swiffer-like applicator with pads specially made for water-based sealer application. Work in small areas, about five feet by two. We tag-teamed this as well, one of us pouring out a small amount of sealer and the other spreading it out. Let each coat dry thoroughly before doing the next. Once the last coat is dry, that's it!
They do recommend you not put furniture or rugs on the floor for 12-24 hours, depending on your humidity. We moved back in about 12 hours after and were careful about dragging things or scraping it for a week or so. Now we just dry swiffer regularly and use the orange clean wet cloths on the swiffer to clean it well once a month. It works well and looks beautiful!
Doing it ourselves was scary at first, but it turned out pretty easy. We did the entire thing in a weekend and it was much cheaper than paying someone!
