What to Expect When You Have Wood Floors Refinished

Time To Completion:

A typical residential sand & refinish job takes 2-3 days for normal sized houses. Many of our jobs are scheduled while the homeowners are out of town on vacation. This is a very convenient way of handling your project, however, if that is not possible we can work around each other and still get the job done on time, on budget, and to your satisfaction.

Moving Furniture:

We ask that all furniture be moved out of the rooms being refinished and that we have easy access to bring in our equipment.

Floor Protection On Furniture Legs:

To maintain the condition of your floors, we recommend that you install floor protection on all furniture to be placed on your new floor. The nail-in or tap-in type with wool pads offer the best protection. We are happy to provide these floor protection products and install them for you at an additional cost.

Types Of Finishes:

We recommend the use of water-based finishes for most hardwood floor finishing and refinishing jobs, as water-based finishes dry faster and are more durable than oil-based finishes. When water-based finishes are used, the surface can usually be walked on (lightly) in 1-2 hours. Furniture (with floor protection pads and NO sliding) can be moved back in within 12-24 hours. The surface of water-based finishes is approximately 85% cured/dried in 24 hours. Water-based finishes are not drastically affected by humidity and dry more consistently no matter what the temperature or humidity level.

Oil-based finishes are drastically affected by humidity and therefore take longer to dry/cure. Oil-based finishes are also not as durable as water-based finishes. We generally only use oil-based floor finishes when we are matching an existing wood floor that is coated in an oil-based finish or when the customer requests it because they want to achieve that “antique” look and the “ambering” caused by a thick coat of oil-based finish.

Another fine option is the use of craft oils to treat your wood floors. These oils penetrate deep into the wood grain, offering natural protection and a matte finish. Craft oils and hard wax oil are environmentally "green".

Floor Colors:

If you want to impart a hue beyond the wood’s natural color, we have wood stain color swatches to help you choose. We can also custom mix floor stain colors and we specialize in matching existing wood floors! When staining a floor, you have to take into account the color of the wood that is being stained as that color will shine through the stain and, by mixing with the stain color, create a new color all it's own.

Some clients say “make it a light honey color” or “make it a dark color” or just “make it look good”. Other clients want lots of input into the stain color used on their hardwood floors. We can work with you before refinishing to help you choose a standard stain color or work with you on-site to show you samples right on the raw wood. Once we find the floor color that you like, we lightly sand off the other color samples (they sand off easily) and apply your color selection. We use stains from Duraseal and Minwax. You can visit their web sites for stain color ideas.

http://www.duraseal.com/sections/products/cs/stains/pen-fini.htm
http://www.minwax.com/wood-products/stains-color-guide/

We can mix colors to give you a special effect or desired hue. A technique called “water popping” allows us to darken a stain color by a few degrees while maintaining its balance of color. We have lots of tools in our bag of tricks to achieve the desired color on your floors.

Wood Floor Cleaning:

Cleaning kits and instructions are available upon request. For advanced cleaning of hardwood flooring see our Deep Cleaning info.