Over the last week or so we’ve been sharing our flooring updates with you. As you’ve probably already guessed, we did a lot more than we initially let on. Basically we sanded almost all the floors in our house in one weekend! It was so much work, with a little bit of disaster along the way…
Friday 17/05/2013
14:30 I’m off to pick up the floor sanders that I reserved earlier this week. The sanders aren’t ready and I’m told to come back in about 30 minutes.
15:15 I return to hire shop. The sanders were accidentally hired out to someone else, the next sanders will be ready in about an hour. The hire shop guys are really friendly and helpful, but this isn’t a great start.
16:15 Back again. Sanders are ready at last. The lovely hire shop guys carry the big floor sander to the car for me. Off home – again.
16:30 Can finally start with the sanding. Yay! Decided to start work in the dining room. Am so excited and decide to start sanding the edges with 40 grit paper. Initial results are amazing and it’s so satisfying to see the clean and stain-free floorboard to appear.
16:45 Sanding is much harder work than it looks. So much harder! Starting to get tired already and have only managed to sand about a metre of the room. This is going to be a very long weekend. I plough on.
18:30 Jan’s home from work. I’ve been struggling on sanding the dining room with the edging sander and am already aching all over. While I’m sanding the edges in the dining room and hallway, Jan makes a start with the large floor sander in the dining room.
22:00 It’s been a long few hours. My back is aching from bending over and my arms are aching from holding the machine. We’ve managed sand about half of the dining room and the edges of the hallway floor.
22:30 Absolutely knackered. After a bit of tidying, we fall into a deep sleep.
Saturday 18/05/2013
9:00 Back to sanding. We’ve realized that although the floorboards are in a good condition, they need more sanding than we anticipated.
13:00 We decide Fish & Chips would be a perfect lunch, having been working so hard. Pop out, but the chip shop is on holiday. Uff. Back home for some sandwiches in our very full living room.
14:15 Back to work. So sick of sanding. My left knee is really sore, as I find myself pressing my left elbow against it to be able to hold and steady the really powerful sander so that I’m not thrown across the room. I obviously have to do more weights at the gym. Jan is still sanding the dining room floor.
15:30 Although the initial sanding results we’re amazing and strangely satisfying, we quickly learn that sanding away all of the dirt and stain takes a much longer time as the boards are slightly uneven and bowed. Loads of sanding is required to even out the boards and get to every last bit of varnish and stain.
16:30 Almost finished the initial dining room floor sanding. Now all of the dirt and varnish is gone, we can switch to a finer grit sandpaper and sand everything again. The novelty has well and truly worn off.
18:00 We start sanding the dining room again with an even finer grade sandpaper and also finally make a start on sanding the hallway floor. By now we’ve learned to frequently switch the sandpaper. It makes a huge difference and progress is much quicker.
21:00 Finished the downstairs sanding. Off upstairs to make a start on the landing. Really can’t be bothered anymore.
22: 00 Fed up, aching and tired. Go to bed and fall asleep straight away. What a great Saturday night. We really know how to live the high life, don’t we?
Sunday 19/05/2013
8:30 Up early. Treat ourselves to a break at the gym.
12:00 Back to sanding. Aching even more than before, maybe going to the gym wasn’t a good idea. Still, a lot left to do in a day.
15:00 We realise that our neighbours are back from their weekend away. We’d better get a move on as there is still a lot to do and the machines are really noisy. At least we’ve made a start on the guest bedroom.
16:30 The job seems never-ending. We’ve definitely taken on much too much for just a weekend. The second bedroom and hallway have now been sanded for the first time with 24 grit paper and we can finally make a start on sanding everything with the 40 and 60 grit papers. Our neighbours are amazing and patient, but it is Sunday evening and we’d better get a move on.
17:00 Almost finished now! All first floor sanding, including the 120 grit last sand is complete. Yay. I start cleaning up the guest bedroom and hallway while Jan carries the really heavy sander down the stairs.
18:00 The very last sand on the ground floor begins. Jan is now using the edging sander and I’m using the big floor sander that Jan just carried down the stairs. It weighs about 40 kg, so three cheers for Jan!
18:10 I plug in the sander to start the final 20 minutes of finishing sanding on the ground floor. The sander doesn’t start up. Slight confusion. I check the socket – all is good. More confusion. I check the cables, but still can’t get the machine to start. Slight panic starts to kick in. Jan the man to the rescue – but even he can’t get the machine to work. We have no idea what went wrong but just can’t get the machine to start. It’s so annoying. We’re so close to completion and patting ourselves in the back, but we just can’t finish the job.
19:00 Jan finishes sanding the edges with the edging sander and attempt a final tidy for the evening.
Monday 20/05/2013
7:00 I’m off to the hire shop to return the sanders and confess our little issue. Had been worrying all night that we’d get a huge bill, but the hire shop guys were fantastic and really helpful.
As we hadn’t damaged the machine and it was just a machine fault, we weren’t liable. Relief – this could have ended up being a really expensive job. The guys in the hire shop promise to call as soon as another sander is in.
9:30 I receive the call and pick up another large floor sander to finish the job.
10:00 I’m on my own as Jan is at work. Panic. The sander has to be back by 12, but it’s just way too heavy for me to lift out of the car. Only one of our neighbours seems to be home, so I try my luck to see if he can help. The door opens, he’s still in his pyjama…
10:30 After our lovely neighbour gives me a hand, I can finally start giving the floor a final sand. All is good, not much more to do now.
11:30 Finally finish the job and can return the sander (with a little more help of my neighbour).
12:00 Can, at last, admire our work. Now, all we need is to varnish all floors. This has to be the longest DIY weekend ever…
What we learned (& what no one will tell you):
- Every tutorial you read states that you have to sink each and every nail into the floorboards before beginning to sand. Don’t bother. Of course, you have to make sure there are no nails protruding out of the surface, but we found it fine to just sand over everything. You have to be really careful though. If you have sparks they can cause the sawdust to catch fire and you could also damage the sandpaper or, even worse, the machine! Definitely something to try at your own risk, but it worked for us!
- We had the floors sanded in the living room and our bedroom. It took our sander guy about 2 hours to do the whole room. We figured that it would maybe take us twice as long – and there are two of us and just one of him. We couldn’t have been more wrong. It took so much longer!
- Start by sanding with a really coarse paper, even if you think that your boards are in a good condition and change your paper frequently. We started sanding with 24 grit, when all of the dirt and varnish was gone, we smoothed over everything with 40 grit and then with 60 grit paper and finally with 120 grit paper.
- Make sure you have plenty of space in your bin. We completely filled ours and emptied our vacuum cleaner 13 times!
- Even if you think your floor doesn’t need it, don’t skip the step with the fine sandpaper. It really does make a difference!
- Don’t underestimate the prep work.
- Sanding is so noisy. Don’t even think about attempting it if you have neighbours that are home. We both wore earplugs the whole time and still ended up with a slight buzzing in our ears.
Budget Breakdown
- Weekend hire floor sander and edge sander (Friday 14:00 – Monday 12:00) – £52.50 (special half price offer)
- Large sanding sheets – £69.60
- Small sanding disks for edging sander – £46.80
- Varnish (we still had some left over from our staircase restoration, so only needed one extra can) – £40.00
- Dust Masks – £4.18
Total: £213.08
When we had the floor in the living room sanded (about 2 years ago) we paid £250.00 for the one room, so doing two rooms and two hallways for about the same price definitely makes it a job worth doing yourself.
The laminate flooring gave everything a cheap feel and our newly sanded floors are so much more in keeping with the style of the house. We still need to finish off the varnishing and sort the skirting boards, but we’re really happy with the result so far.
That’s what happened on our busiest DIY weekend. What were you up to? Have you ever taken on too much work for a weekend? Have you ever sanded your own floors?
*Having been asked a lot of questions about how to sand wooden floors, we’ve put together a long list answering the most frequently asked questions. You can check it out here: Floorsanding FAQ.*
Hello 😊 this is a very interesting and informative journal of your floor sanding experience. You mentioned that you had your lounge professionally sanded for £250, did his include varnishing/finishing it or just the sanding? And what size is your lounge approximately?
Thank you 😊
Yes, we paid to have our lounge floor sanded. This included finishing (in our case varnish) and the room was approximately 15m². We’ve shared lots of floor sanding advice over the years and if you search for floor sanding on our blog you’ll find lots of articles. I’d definitely recommend reading this post we wrote about the most common floor sanding questions we get asked, as it will probably cover most of the questions you have but feel free to ask away if you have any more.
Cx
Hi, thanks for this really helpful guide! We just bought a house where the previous owners appear to have whitewashed the wood floors throughout the house. Upstairs there are original 1930 floors, downstairs there are relatively new wide plank wood floors. Everything is white. We would like to restore all of the floors to their natural color, do you think that sanding will really remove all the paint? I am skeptical because of the seams and cracks, but we have no experience with restoring floors. I have been wondering if we need to use a paint stripper first and then sand? Your thoughts and experience would be very much appreciated!
It really depends on what your floorboards are made of. If you have the original floorboards, it shouldn’t be a problem to give them a sand and remove the paint. There’s definitely no need to remove the paint with paint stripper first – the sanding will remove everything! The floors in our current home were covered in a really thick layer of paint and sanding them removed everything! (You can see the floors in our current home here) I’d generally treat the wide plank floors the same but it’s important to know what they are made of! If they are engineered floorboards you may not be able to sand them as the top layer of timber may be too thin to sand.
Basically, I’d research what your floors are made of first and then sand them if you know that they are floorboards that can be sanded.
Hope that makes sense!
Cx
Thanks for the quick response, very helpful & reassuring to see your new place! I would be very happy if ours turn out that well! Also, very relieved that we don’t have to strip two levels of our house in addition to sanding… I’m just curious though, doesn’t paint get into the spaces and joints between boards? How does this come out from sanding? I assumed that sanding work on the boards, but that any gaps in the wood would end up staying white. Thanks so much for your great site.
I know exactly what you mean and it’s difficult to answer without knowing exactly what your floors look like. Having said that, sanding removes a lot the surface area of the timber (a couple of millimetres at least) and usually any bits of paint that have worked their way into any joins will not be too deep and will disappear when sanding. It really depends on exactly what your floors are like though and how big the gaps are between the floorboards.
Hope that makes sense & sorry I can’t be more help!
Cx
Wow your floors look amazing. Well done to you both. One question? Where did you hire your floor sander from? I would like to sand my floors in my victorian house but a couple of people have told me not do it myself and it’s better to hire some one to do it.
But I can’t really afford to hire someone so i need to do it myself. I spoke to a builder and he said if you hire a machine from a will known hire company, they damage the floors. So any tips what sander you used that would be great… Thanks mario
Thank you, Mario! I honestly think that floor sanding is something you can easily do yourself. It’s very hard work but not difficult and our floors looked exactly the same as the floors we paid to have sanded.
We hired our machine at a local company (because they had an offer on) and we’re really happy with it. When we sanded the floors in our current come we used another local company to hire the sanders. Most machines are very similar and I’d be surprised if they damaged the floors no matter where you hire them.
Cx
Great job. I’ve heard that varnishes turn darken with an orange tinge over time
Is that your experience?
We sanded and varnished our floor about 3 years ago and so far it hasn’t turned orange at all although it has darkened a bit. The varnish we used held up really well and we’re still really happy with how it turned out. Having said that, I think I’d be tempted to oil the floor if we every undertook a similar project again.
Cx
Hello! We read your blog and sanded three rooms in our new house this weekend! It was everything you said it would be! Knackering, dusty (especially when the dust bag exploded!), but satisfying when finished. We are just about to varnish the floors now and I was wondering if you have any tips for this? Did you do yours with a roller or a brush and do we need anything special for this? When the varnish says to sand before applying the top layer, how did you go about this?
Thank you for any advice you can give and also for such brilliant tips about the sanding process!
Holly
Glad we could help, Holly! An exploding dust bag sounds like a nightmare – at least most of the hard work is done now!
For varnishing the floor we just used a large paint brush. You could, of course, use a roller of you want but I personally always prefer the finish you get with a brush. In general, when painting or varnishing wood you should always sand (only lightly with fine sandpaper) between coats of paint/varnish. It removes any air bubbles and imperfections and will result in a much smoother and more professional finish. Having said that, we didn’t bother to sand between coats of varnish on the floor. We figured that it wouldn’t matter if it wasn’t super smooth as it’s “only” the floor and we wouldn’t be feeling it too much ;). Other than that we didn’t use anything special, just make sure that your floor is super clean and completely dust free. You could also wipe the floor with white spirit first to make sure that there’s absolutely no dust left, but we didn’t bother with that either.
Hope that helps & good luck with your floor!
Cx
Thank you for your reply and your advice :) Yes, we were feeling so smug and saying ‘this isn’t as dusty as we thought it would be, we can handle this’ and then boom, dust literally everywhere! Okay great, we’ll give it a go with the brush and see how we get on.
All the best with your upcoming move,
Holly
Haha, it’s always the way!
Thank you, Holly!
Cx
Hi! So sorry to bother you again.. We are now agonising over which varnish to buy! The aquathane you used has now been discontinued and there are so many other varnishes out there it’s tough to choose one! Do you still rate the no nonsense quick dry varnish you used on your kitchen? Our floorboards are pine so we’re just wanting something non yellowing and clear in colour to enhance the wood.
Thank you so much,
Holly
No problem, Holly! I’ve had a look at the Granwax website and the product names seem to have changed. I’ve compared the front of the products on the internet with the one that we have and going by the description it looks like this is the one that we used. http://www.granwax-direct.co.uk/product-p/granfinish-5ltr.htm
The NoNonsense varnish is still also holding up really well, too. It’s not yellowed and we’re still happy with the finish.
Cx
Thank you for your help Christine. We have bought the no nonsense varnish, seems to have good reviews all round :) All the best,
Holly
Hi there! Thanks for all of the great tips! I’m just about to sand my hallway and dining room but the varnish guidelines I’ve seen say that though it dries pretty quick you can’t walk on it for 24 hours. This just isn’t possible in the hallway so thought about doing it before bed each night. How did you get around this? Thanks ☺
That’s exactly what we did – varnished our way through the hallway to the stairs and left it overnight. The varnish we used dried fairly quickly, but it’s always a good idea to let it dry as long as possible before walking on it.
Good luck with your floors!
Cx
Thanks :-)