Wood Floor Question

[Perd Hapley]

We pulled up the carpet in our bedroom to discover a hardwood floor.  It looks like oak.  We cleaned off the paint splatters (what half-wit paints over a hardwood floor with no drop cloth?) with a putty knife and Goof Off, so it looks so-so.  I know it needs some additional TLC, but I'm not sure which way to go.  I'm thinking of going over it with Oil Soap and then a couple of coats of paste wax.  Or will the wax not go on over a fresh coat of oil?  Or should I polyeurathane it? 

I welcome any suggestions, but anything that involves sanding is farther than we're going to go right now.  I've spent months gutting and re-doing this room, and we need to finally move in to our bedroom.  We don't have the time, patience or energy left for sanding three times and applying twelve coats of whatever you put on a hardwood floor.  Besides, I haven't even painted the molding yet. 


Thanks,

fistful

[Sindawe]

I'm no expert on the topic, so my suggesting is just clean it up and put a good protective coat on the wood until you do have the time to redo the finish from the bare wood.  It may not look its best, but thats what throw rugs are for.

A quick search on Google turns up this: http://www.pioneerthinking.com/harwfloor.html

Hardwood floors are in the future for my place.  My problem is deciding on what species of wood I want, and what look I like (refinded vs. rustic). 

[Larry Ashcraft]

I wouldn't suggest wax, probably would be too slick.  Our house has circa 1933 #1 white oak floors.  We had them refinished before we moved in, with polyurethane.  The floor refinisher said no wax, just Murphy's Oil Soap and a damp mop.

A couple weeks ago I bought a Hoover Floormate.  It beats the heck out of a damp mop, and leaves the floor drier.  I got the Hoover at Kohls for $100 on sale.  WalMart had them for $139.

BTW, floor refinishing is not a DIY project.  We removed carpet in a small room in the back of the bouse a few years ago and tried to do it ourselves (with rented equipment).  Even though it was summer and we had windows open, we were both sick for a couple days afterwards.  Breathing the old finish and sawdust and the new polyurethane is what did it.

Floor refinishing runs about as much as decent quality carpeting, but I'd rather have the wood any day, much easier to keep clean.  If you do have the floor refinished, prepare to move out ALL furniture, AND expect to stay in a hotel for a couple nights.  Polyurethane is nasty stuff to breathe.

[Ron]

My problem is deciding on what species of wood I want, and what look I like

Just make sure if you get an exotic wood you aren't allergic to that type of wood.

I have heard of people getting rashes from exotic wood grips on their gun, it would suck to be allergic to the floor of your own house!

[Iain]

Just make sure if you get an exotic wood you aren't allergic to that type of wood.

I have heard of people getting rashes from exotic wood grips on their gun, it would suck to be allergic to the floor of your own house!

I've heard of this through an interest (not yet a hobby) in lutherie. http://www.mimf.com/archives/toxic.htm

I've got nothing useful to add to this thread aside from that little tidbit.

[Standing Wolf]

Wooden floors, not wood.

[Perd Hapley]

Thanks for the suggestions.  I'd love to do nothing but Oil Soap it.  All I know about hardwood floors is what I learned from the contractors I took bids from at work a while back.  They offered Polyeurathane or wax.  But those weren't oaken* floors.  I just figured the finish would need a touch-up after all those years under that cheap, ugly carpet.  Those morons!  I should be thankful, though, the carpet probably protected the floor from the rental inhabitants.

RE: wood allergies.  Would a floor be more or less likely to bother your allergies than a set of pistol stocks?

Standing Wolf, if you are correct, I thank you for it.  Hadn't considered that, but then I'm not clear on that particular rule of grammar. 

*Is that better, Wolf?   

[K Frame]

"BTW, floor refinishing is not a DIY project."

Sure it is. I've done half a dozen hardwood floor refinishes over the years.

As long as you take your time, and do your research before hand, you can do as good a job as the people who do it for a living.

Unless the floor is really bad, you don't need to use a drum sander. There are oscilating pad sanders and multi-disk sanders that do an excellent job. Most DIYers who get into trouble do so because they're not familiar with how to work a drum sander.

1998, Labor Day weekend, my friend David and I drum sanded 5 rooms in his house. Didn't divot a single spot in the floor. The next two weeks were spent doing the edge sanding (the truly time consuming task) and final prep before we laid down 3 coats of stain and 2 coats of water-based polyurethane.

His father-in-law, an architect, says that the job we did is a match for anything he's ever seen done professionally.

[charby]

I used to be a jack of all trades self employed guy, most of my work was fixing up old apartments.

I worked on a place that had white oak floors, the place was 1890's large house that was broken up into several apartments.

What I did was scrub the heck out of the floors with oil soap and then removed paint and anything else I could get up. I buffed the surface with a Scotch brite and put down three coats of water based polyeurathane. For a floor that had seen 105 years of traffic, 25 years of college rentals and probably never hit with a sander it came out looking pretty good.

I used Varathane Diamond Polyeurathane, it has a unusual sweet smell to it, reminds me of the milk based paint. It isn't pungent or mind altering and goes away when its dry.

Good luck

Charby

[Perd Hapley]

milk based paint

 

Charby, your plan seems more my speed.  I'm not sure I'd use a scotch-brite, but I guess I need to scour it lightly with something. 

[charby]

just google milk based paint.


Also I just rolled the Varathane on with a low texture roller cover. 

-C

[HankB]

http://www.realmilkpaint.com/oil.html

[K Frame]

Scotch brite pads are a fixture in the flooring industry for scuffing a finish without removing material prior to the next coat.


Milk paint is fine, it's old timey, but if you ever have to strip it off something, it is the most horrific pain in the ass you've ever seen.

Virtually nothing touches it.

[Brad Johnson]

Milk paint is fine, it's old timey, but if you ever have to strip it off something, it is the most horrific pain in the ass you've ever seen.

Virtually nothing touches it.

+1.  It soaks into the wood grain even more than oil-based stains.  To get it off you have to remove a pretty healthy layer of wood.

fistful, clean up any surface mess (like the paint) then use something like tung oil that will protect the wood and bring out the grain.  The few scuffs and stains here and there that you already have will just lend a nice distressed look to the floor.

Brad

[Perd Hapley]

The few scuffs and stains here and there that you already have will just lend a nice distressed look to the floor.

That's pretty much what we're looking for, although we have some big, black stains we could do without.  Any suggestions for those?  Should I scotch-brite it before applying tung oil?  Will an iron have any effect on the dents in the floor? 

Thanks,

Josh

[charby]

You can iron some dents out with a household iron and little bit of water on bare wood, not sure about a floor that has been stained and sealed.

-C

[K Frame]

Big black stains on oak floors almost always mean one thing -- pet accidents.

The ammonia in the urine reacts with tannins in the wood and you end up with a deep brown/black stain.

The only way to deal with that kind of stain is to strip the old finish off the floor by sanding, bleach the stain using oxalyic acid powder in hot water (you can get it at Home Depot), let the floor dry, rebleach if necessary (often is due to a rebound effect), let the floor dry again, then finish sand, stain, and seal.

[roo_ster]

We had a similar situation...in every room in the house save the kitchen, which is vinyl.

Truly, someone has to be a mouth-breathing, sand-pounding moron to not use a drop cloth and schlop paint all over hardwood flooring.  Hangin' is too good for them.

Given your reqts (moving in soon) just clean 'er up with mild soap & be done with it.  If you wanna refinish later, your floor isn't going anywhere.

[Perd Hapley]

If you wanna refinish later, your floor isn't going anywhere.

Yeah, that's true, but we'd have to move the furniture again.  Just the same, I'll be following the Tung Oil recommendation.  Any suggestions on how to apply? 

Big black stains on oak floors almost always mean one thing -- pet accidents.

So I figured. 

[HankB]

. . . I'll be following the Tung Oil recommendation.  Any suggestions on how to apply? 

http://www.realmilkpaint.com/floortung.html

Haven't done a floor, but I've refinished a couple of gunstocks with pure tung oil . . . the gunstock method is probably too labor intensive for a floor, I'd be inclined to follow the method in the link above.

For gunstocks, I first cut the tung oil with about 3 parts mineral spirits, then slopped it on the stock for a while, keeping it good and saturated before wiping off the excess. (The thinner carries the oil deep into the wood.) The next day, I did the same except with 2 parts spirits to 1 part oil. Next day, 1:1 dilution, but I added a little Japan drier. Let dry for a week, wet sand, and then rub on straight tung oil, wipe, and let dry. Repeat. And repeat again. And again.

Lots of work for a gunstock, but it came out looking good.

[Perd Hapley]

. Pure Tung Oil can not be applied over another type of finish. It can only be applied to a previous coat of Pure Tung Oil. For best results a previously finished floor should be chemically stripped of its finish, cleaned with TSP, then lightly sanded to open up the surface.

So maybe I won't go with the Tung.     Guess I'll just Oil Soap it for now then. 


Thanks for all the help.  I'll be reading the Pioneer Thinking page.  Thanks, Sindawe.

[K Frame]

Go to either a flooring store or even a big box store and see if you can find yourself a can of Bruce's (as in Bruce flooring) floor rejuvinator. It's a serious ass cleaner and does a good job on poly or wax floor finishes.

[Perd Hapley]

Looks like I'm going to clean up with a wood floor cleaner and apply some wax.  I think the previous finish was wax, or maybe the carpet pad rubbed off all the polyurethane that was on top.  In any case, water beads beautifully on the surface, so there's still some kind of finish there.  Mike, thanks for the tip on Bruce's.  I'll look for it.

The last couple of nights, I've been biting the bullet and caulking/priming my molding.  I was going to do it later on, but that was the lazy way out.  It would have looked half-done for a looong time until I got around to moving the furniture around.  Thankfully, I was able to buy primed molding, except for the quarter round shoe down at the baseboard.  Caulking was surprisingly easy.  I'm so used to silicone caulking in bathrooms that latex caulk is like a dream, especially when I'm just rubbing it into a bunch of nail holes. 

[K Frame]

Make sure you get the right kind of cleaner for the finish on your floor. If you have a poly floor, get a poly cleaner, if you have a wax floor, get a wax cleaner.

There are other makers other than Bruce, that's the name I pulled off the top of my head.

Oh, and no, I sincerely doubt if the carpet pad rubbed the poly off the floor. Poly creates a TON of dust.