How to Refinish Wood Floors You can clean and refinish a scratched wood floor without having to sand down to bare wood Q: My oak floors are covered in scratches. Do I have to sand down to bare wood to get rid of them?—Susan Bankhead, Meridian, Idaho A: The Editors of This Old House reply: Not necessarily. If the scratches don't go all the way through to the wood, you can scuff-sand your floors with a buffer and apply a fresh coat or two of finish. The process is easier and less expensive than sanding down to bare wood and takes less time. In a few hours your floors will look as good as new. The job requires using a buffer, which you can rent at a home center, and a vacuum to suck up dust. If you've never used a buffer before, practice in the middle of the room until you get a feel for how to maneuver it. Once the finish is roughed up, we put on a water-based polyurethane, which can be recoated in 3 hours. Oil-based polys are cheaper, but each coat takes about 8 hours to dry.

With either finish, we recommend a fresh coat every two years or whenever the floor looks worn. Stick to that routine and your floors will never wear out. Remove all the furniture, and spray the floor with a hardwood flooring cleaner or your own mix of 10 parts water to 1 part white vinegar. Gently wipe the floor with a terry-cloth mop or a towel wrapped around a mop head. Close the windows and doors to keep dust contained in the room you're sanding. Using 180-grit sandpaper, hand-sand the perimeter of the room and any nooks that the buffer can't reach. Rub with the grain 4 to 6 inches out from the baseboard, working over each board until the finish dulls and a powder forms. Don't use a sanding block—it might miss uneven spots in the floor. Stick a maroon buffing pad to the buffer, and put on a dust mask. Move the buffer from side to side across the floor in the direction of the grain, overlapping each course by 6 inches. The old finish turns to powder as you go, so it's easy to see the areas you've covered.

Keep the buffer moving at all times, but stop every 5 minutes or so and vacuum the pad. Leave the room for 10 to 15 minutes to let the powder settle. Put a clean filter in the vacuum, and sweep the floor using a felt-bottomed attachment. Work in line with the flooring strips, then sweep across them to get any powder that settled between the boards. average cost of vent cleaningFinally, dry-tack the floor with a microfiber cloth pushed with the grain.best car vacuum cleaner malaysia Cut in Along the Edgesbest way to clean honeycomb shades Cover your shoes with booties and your nose and mouth with a respirator that has organic vapor canisters. best way to clean rv upholstery

Strain the finish through a cone filter into a clean plastic watering can, minus a sprinkler head, then pour some strained finish into a small plastic container. Brush a 3-inch-wide stripe beside the baseboards at a point farthest from your exit door. You'll have lap marks if the edge of the stripe starts to dry, so stop after 10 minutes and go to the next step.best way to clean copper stove hood Roll Out the Polybest cordless car vacuum cleaner 2015 Pour out a 1-inch-wide stripe of finish in line with the grain—only as much as you can spread in 10 minutes. Using a long-handled roller with a ¼-inch nap cover, roll out the finish with the grain, then across it. Overlap each pass and work quickly to keep a wet edge. After 10 minutes, brush more finish along the edge, then pour and roll again for 10 minutes.

Continue until the floor is covered. Wait 3 hours before recoating and a week before putting back furniture.View Your Flooring Choices. Our Installation Process Brings It All Together. The Simple Path To New Flooring (without leaving your couch!) Schedule a Design Consultant to come to your house with our Mobile Showroom Select your flooring and get your room(s) measured Receive your proposal and review financing options Make your decision and order your flooring Create a profile to save your favorites so that we can be better prepared for your free, in home consultation! Be sure to click the "Save Favorites" button to create a gallery of your favorites. Kitchen floors are subject to many different grease and oil spots from cooking and baking activities. Most kitchen floors are covered with laminate, ceramic tile or sometimes a stone material. After a while, they can begin to look dull and lose their shine and luster. It is very easy to fix this problem so that your kitchen floor surface shines like new.

Remember, before you begin to wash and shine your floors, it is always a good habit to vacuum them and scrub in areas where caked on pieces of dirt has adhered to the floor surface. The best cleaning solution you can use is water and vinegar. This solution is fantastic for making your ceramic tile kitchen floor shine well. All you do is take a bucket and fill it with warm water. Add about a cup of vinegar for every four or five cups of warm water.  Mix the solution well. Using a soft mop, begin to mop and dry the floor. Vinegar and water will make your kitchen floors shine beautifully; it dries streak-free and is a green solution. Fabric Softener and Water If you have a no wax vinyl kitchen floor, try adding fabric softener to water. Take a bucket and fill it with warm water. Add a couple caps full of fabric softener to your warm water solution. Using a clean mop head to mop your floors. Do not soak the floors.  Make sure you wring the mop head out really well before you begin to mop up the floors.

Repeat several times and your vinyl floor will be restored so that it looks new. If your kitchen floors are a wood material, use a wood floor cleaner. The wood floor cleaner will give your wood kitchen floors a nice glow. Make sure you get into the corners. Do not apply too much cleaner because it will leave noticeable streaks. Another great cleaning solution is one that has a gallon of warm water and a cup of ammonia. This helps to remove tough dirt and grease on the floors. This is one step up from using a vinegar and water solution on your ceramic or tile floors. Remember that ammonia has a strong odor, so be sure to keep the room well ventilated when using this product. If you have slate kitchen floors, you may want to think about adding a seal to the slate. A seal will prevent additional dirt and grime from getting trapped inside the slate. Slate is a very porous material and attracts grease, oil and additional dirt. The sealant also will help to create a pretty shine for your slate floor.