Refinishing old hardwood floors in your home is a great way to boost the value of your home as well as breathe new life into the authentic beauty of your hardwood floors. But is it the improvement that your home needs? Here’s how to tell.
How Do I Know When to Refinish My Hardwood Floors?
Getting your hardwood floors refinished is essentially a way of giving them a facelift. It affects the surface appearance only, so it won’t have an effect on the actual structure of your flooring. If your hardwood floors look dull, scratched, or even stained, then it may be time to refinish them. However, if your hardwood floors are bulging, buckling, or uneven, these are signs that the floors need to be replaced.
How Many Times Can I Refinish My Hardwood Floors?
How many times a hardwood floor can be refinished varies between different types of wood. Wood for flooring is milled in a variety of thicknesses, so, for example, an older home with antique oak floors will have ample thickness in the wear-layer, or the part of the wood that is to be sanded. These floors could have more than one refinish. A newer home with engineered wood floors may have floorboards with a thinner wear-layer, which means they probably can’t be refinished more than once.
What Do I Do If I Can’t Refinish My Hardwood Floors?
If you do have floors with a thinner wear-layer, then there are alternatives to refinishing. Sandless refinishing is a type of refinishing that doesn’t involve removing any of the wood. The floor is simply cleaned and prepared for a new finish layer. A finish coat applied at the end hides some of the scratches and restores a bit of the wood’s lustrous color. It should be noted, however, that this type of refinishing will not flatten the floors the same way that traditional refinishing would, so dents and dings would remain.
Another type of finishing that doesn’t require heavily sanding the floors is buffing and coating. This involves a very light sanding of the wood floors to texturize them, after which a finish coat is applied. This method will also remove light scratches but won’t fix dents and dings.
Interested in refinishing your hardwood floors? Get in touch with Cossentino, and we’ll visit your home to see your floors and advise you on the best steps to take to bring out your hardwood’s natural beauty!