Floor finishing

[Stephen Tebaldi]

I am going to start refinishing our hardwood floors (were covered with carpet) this weekend. Ideally I would like to get the entire house done in one shot, but without being able to move all of our stuff out and stay somewhere else this will not happen. I was curious if it would be a problem to sand the entire house and stain the entire floor but only finish half of it? The finish we are using is bona traffic (supposedly good for high traffic, i.e. pets) and it says to try and keep traffic to a minimum for 3 days. So my thought is to sand the entire floor, to save from having to rent the sander twice, and just do the finishing on half of the house this weekend. I guess my question is whether or not it would be a problem to just have half the floors stained for a week or so until we can move all the stuff to previously finished rooms and do the remaining floor. Thanks in advance for any help.

Stephen

[sean m. titmas]

Im not saying that it cant be done but its never been easy when i had to refinish a floor by splitting it up. Ive done maybe 20 floors and half of them had to be done half and half. the best way to accomplish this is to break it up by rooms so that the dry edge does not look as obvious. once a floor is sanded and vacummed you need to start the staining process with little to no traffic on the freshly sanded wood because it will pick up dirt faster than a fat kid can eat cake. than its on to the staining. however, once the stain is dry you need to start the poly process and you must limit the traffic on the stain to socked feet or a flat soled rubber shoe otherwise you will grind dust, dirt particulate and shoe prints into the wood. traffic on the fresh stain will compress the raised grain of the wood which will make the stain look darker and possibly affect the color and adhesion of the poly.

to achieve your goal i suggest you strip the floors with the drum sander (60 - 80 grit) than use the floor machine and work up through the grits 100, 120, 150. after cleaning the floor you need to cover it 100% with rosin paper. tape all the seams and edges( to each other and the floor with blue tape) to keep them clean. during this process you will need to move your furnishings back n forth so be careful not to rip the paper. than you can pull up the paper and apply the stain and poly in each room or area as you have the time. apply the stain and the first spit coat of poly on all the floors. once it has dried for 24 hours rent the floor buffer again and lightely sand the poly to knock down any nibs. vacuum again and apply the next 3 coats.

it may seem like a lot of work but that's because it is. its also not necessary to sand after the first coat but it makes the final floor look and feel professional. on any floor job for a client that has a house full of stuff i rent a POD unit and move all the furniture either into the POD or to an area that is not wood. with a crew of 3 i can strip, sand, stain and poly the average 4 room house in about 3 days(not including the 72 hours for a full cure on the poly.)

best of luck with your floor and post a pic when its done.

[Scott Holmes]

Sean great read...good advice.

One comment... poly takes 30 days +/- a few days to fully cure, not 72 hours, unless you are using a post catalyzed poly.

[sean m. titmas]

Sean great read...good advice.

One comment... poly takes 30 days +/- a few days to fully cure, not 72 hours, unless you are using a post catalyzed poly.

good point Scott. I use commercial grade floor poly and the wait time before full traffic is 72 hr. i just assumed that that was the full cure time. perhaps i should of said "wait 72 hours before moving your furniture back on the new floor."

[Stephen Tebaldi]

Thanks for the advice. The finishing was going to begin this weekend but the timing didn't work out. We decided to do it in two stages since it was the only logistical way to get it done. It will probably just require a bit of feathering at the one joint to make it as inconspicuous as possible. The finish I am using (bona traffic) also lists a 72 hour before furniture time frame. It says no foot traffic for 24 hours, so I figure we will just finish the floor in the front half of the house and live in the back half for a few days. I will post pictures when the entire floor is done.