DIY folks: let's talk about refinishing floors

[gozf]

Like, how awful of a project is this?

We're looking to buy a house, and we found one we LOVE - but the floors are beat. Hardwood throughout, but it needs some TLC.

The dude seems to think this isn't a huge deal, that it'd be a couple weekends worth of headache, but that we could do it ourselves. I'm not handy at all, and this whole thing is giving me hives.

So. How much of a nightmare is redoing floors? For the record, they're good floors -- no boards need replacing or anything -- they're just old and crapped up.

The house is otherwise great. Lots of space, quick walk to downtown, off street parking, at the low end of our price range. I'm just debating whether it's worth taking on a project.

[snipsnsnails]

Skill-wise: moderate to somewhat difficult (mainly the even sanding and staining for a nice, polished look)

Time and work-wise: Difficult

It's possible but it's a lot of work. Lots of steps and just a good amount of manpower hours. If he's handy and dedicated, you could do it.

Fwiw, my father is a contractor and refinished his original hardwood floors. He said if he were to go back, he'd hire it out, because he's old and his back hurt. Ha. You're young and limber!

[Deleted]

No thank you.

[Deleted]

Lol. I have heard it's a bitch.

Since the house is on the low end of your budget - can you hire it out?

[thinkofthesoldiers]

My parents are the ultimate diy people. My dad did their floors once and he said never again.

[themysteriouswife]

My dad can do anything. He wouldn't touch wood floors for $$$$. He said it's a PITA.

[winecat]

I did it at my house with help from my mom and brother. There's a place in town that has classes and sells supplies so you can practice on their wood floors vs learning on your own. It definitely was a lot of work and I hated doing it but I didn't have the funds to do it otherwise. I'd do it again if I had to but I'd rather hire it out. We didn't stain the floors though.

[papie]

You are crazy for even considering this.

[tootsie]

We DIY like crazy and would be wary of this. Gigantic mess and every error is going to be on display for a looooong time. Floors are a bitch.

[nomad100]

I think refinishing your own floors is like doing your own drywall installation. Sounds like a good idea but once you are in the weeds, you wish you had hired it out.

DH and I are major DIYers but there are only a few things we won't do and refinishing floors and installing drywall are two of them.

[annieh22]

H did one room and then we hired the rest. It looks great and wasn't difficult, just really time consuming and hurt his back. He was in agony after doing one room.

[dexteroni]

Nov 30, 2015 10:09:04 GMT -5 annieh22 said:

H did one room and then we hired the rest.

We had the exact same experience. The room he did looks great, but this is definitely a hire-out job.

[gozf]

Nov 30, 2015 9:57:12 GMT -5 papie said:

You are crazy for even considering this.

I feel crazy!!!

I think that, since this house is on the lower side of our price range, I am going to campaign hard to hire folks. Because, really, this sounds terrible!

[Marmee]

We did it in our first house. It wasn't too bad until you did the edging sander and had to bend over while doing it. That was back breaking for Dh (lol). I think you can maybe do it a different way now since that was 15yrs ago. The belt sander was cool/quick & the staining/poly was pretty easy. If my house was empty, I'd do it again. We literally had to DIY because we did not have the money to hire it at the time. The pros wanted like $2500 per room...lol.

[lightbulbsun]

H and I are huge DIYers and we hired out for this. It took them 3 days, and it looked amazing, and was so worth the money. FWIW it cost $4k for ~1000 sf in our M-HCOL area.

We did do the steps ourselves, which wasn't too bad (I think they wanted $100/step).

[lavender444]

We are die hard DIYers, but we hire out flooring, except tile. It's a job you really want the right tools for. After you factor in the equipment rentals and supplies to do it, it's not all that much more expensive to pay labor for the professionals. Plus they clean up!