After Staing a Wood Floor Do You Have to Sand It Again

• Floor & Stairs

How To: Stain Hardwood Floors

You lot tin rejuvenate your tired, worn hardwood floors with a beautiful new finish, provided y'all have the correct tools, sufficient elbow grease, time, patience, and a good for you attending to detail.

Photo: fotosearch.com

Hardwood flooring offers rich, warm, timeless dazzler, and tin even favorably affect the resale value of your home. Without question, wood costs more other types of flooring, but many homeowners view the material as a wise long-term investment. Why? Because when a hardwood floor starts to show wear and tear, you can refinish it and in so doing, revitalize its look and performance. Make no mistake, withal: Sanding, staining, and sealing a wood floor takes time and effort. It's a demanding project, fifty-fifty for a veteran home handyman. That said, y'all can save a considerable sum past doing it yourself, sometimes more than half of what it would cost to rent a pro. If you lot're gear up and willing to take on the chore, keep reading for the details on how to stain your ain hardwood floors.

The weekend-long process follows these steps:

1. Empty the room.
2. Use a random orbital sander to sand the floor three times, using a lighter-dust annoying with each pass.
3. Remove dust with a heavy-duty shop vac followed by rags dampened with mineral spirits.
4. Utilize stain to the hardwood floor in one ii-foot section at a time using a lambswool applicator.
5. Top the terminate with a protective and glossy glaze of polyurethane sealer.

Tools & Materials

• Shop vacuum
• Tack cloth
• Random orbital sander
• Protective eyewear
• Grit mask
• Sandpaper
• See full list «
• Palm sander
• Hardwood floor stain
• Lambswool stain applicator
• Cleaning cloths
• 2-inch paintbrushes
• Polyurethane sealer
• High-density foam roller

Step 1

Earlier doing anything else, become the room ready. Relocate all article of furniture, and if the room has baseboards use a pry bar to remove the quarter-round shoe moldings that mark the transition between the baseboard and the floor. (Note: Label each slice of shoe molding with its location to ensure easy reinstallation afterwards.) Considering floor sanding creates a groovy deal of dust, don't forget to cover the doorways with plastic sheeting or a ready of old sheets, preventing dust from traveling beyond the piece of work area. You may besides want to encompass whatever light fixtures or HVAC vents. In brusk, if there's something you don't want filmed by a layer of dust, at present is the time to protect it.

Pace two

Sanding may exist the single almost critical step in the process; it largely determines the quality of the finish event. If y'all don't sand the floor carefully and deliberately, that's going to show in one case the stain dries. Calculation even more stress to the task: For any room larger than a closet, you'll need a similarly large sanding tool to get the task done—namely, a waist-height random orbital sander. The good news is that random orbital sanders are readily bachelor for rent at your local home eye. They're also generally user-friendly and pose picayune hazard of damaging the floor, so long as you read and adhere to the operating instructions provided with the unit.

Refinishing your floors?

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Be prepared to sand the floor three times, using a lighter-grit annoying with each pass. Kickoff, fix up the sander with 60-grit sandpaper and, afterwards donning protective eyewear and a grit mask, starting time moving the sander over the floor. The preferred technique isn't so different from the 1 you'd apply when mowing the lawn: Sand the floor in rows, overlapping your runs by approximately half the width of the sander. Later you lot've completed the start round, swap in fourscore-grit sandpaper and sand again. Call up to keep the sander level, and never end the sanding disks when they are in contact with the floor. Finally, switch to 100- or 120-dust abrasive and sand one more fourth dimension. In whatever expanse where the random orbital sander is too large to reach, utilise a palm sander or a detail sander to achieve the desired level of smoothness.

Photo: fotosearch.com

Step iii

At this point, your job is simple merely painstaking: Thoroughly vacuum up the enormous quantity of dust created during the sanding phase of the projection. Don't utilise your regular household vacuum, though—it'south probably not up to the task. Opt instead for a heavy-duty shop vac, fitted with a brush attachment and, ideally, a new filter. Even afterwards vacuuming every inch of the space, there'southward still more to do. Using either tack cloths or rags dampened with mineral spirits, wipe down the floor until it'southward clean and articulate of dust and debris. Doing so may take more sweat than y'all anticipated, but for a quality stain finish, it's an important and sadly unavoidable effort.

Step iv

At last, you're prepare to stain—just not earlier ensuring proper ventilation (after all, floor finishes can emit harmful vapors). Once you've ensured a condom piece of work environment, stop a moment and strategize. You need to brand sure that when the flooring has been freshly stained, you lot'll be able to go out it without stepping all over your work. It's normally wise to brainstorm in one of the corners contrary the door and and so work your manner toward the exit. Once you've mapped out your path, become started. Using a lambswool applicator, utilise the stain to the floor, aiming for even distribution over one two-foot section at a time. Wipe away the excess with a rag before moving on to the side by side section. Endeavor not to let the "moisture edge" dry. Rather, start the applicator a couple of anxiety abroad from the border, then maneuver information technology to run into the previously coated department. In the corners, or where the flooring meets the baseboards, a two-inch paintbrush may prove handier than the applicator. Finished? Let the stain dry, then assess whether you'd like the terminate to be darker. If so, employ a second glaze in the same way that you lot did the first.

Step 5

When the stain is completely dry out, it'due south fourth dimension for the last step—protecting the finish with polyurethane sealer. Using a high-density cream roller (and, if necessary, a two-inch brush for some parts of the room), utilize a thin, even coat across the entire floor surface. Wipe up whatever excess, so let the coat dry to a glassy stop. If the blazon of sealer you're using does not crave sanding between coats, you lot can keep directly to the second application of polyurethane. Otherwise, sand the flooring with fine, 320-grit abrasive to ensure that the 2nd coat properly adheres. Don't be tempted to employ the brawny random orbital sander to sand at this late stage; here, finesse is the name of the game. Instead, sand either by manus or with a sanding pole. After cleaning up the inevitable dust with your shop vac and tack cloths, utilise the 2nd, concluding coat of sealer, then let it dry. You typically must await 24 hours before being able to walk safely on the floor once more, and as long as 72 hours before replacing furniture in the room. The drying period is a piffling annoying, simply for a beautiful new finish and a dramatically transformed room, the look'south worth it.

Refinishing your floors?

Some jobs are better left to the pros. Get free, no-delivery estimates from licensed flooring contractors near yous.

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Source: https://www.bobvila.com/articles/how-to-stain-hardwood-floors/#:~:text=After%20you've%20completed%20the,in%20contact%20with%20the%20floor.