Hand Sanding Old Wood Floors

Underneath the old shabby carpet in our parlor sat these wooden floors, likely not touched since the 50's, and ever since the 50's I am sure these poor wood floors have seen their fair share of cat pee, cat poo, dog doo, and all sorts of yucky and nasty....

It became my mission to restore the woodne floors in the house, to make them dark, shiny, and looking like a pile of new!!!

I knew I could easily just hire some handy man to sand them down and re-finish them, but I am not that sort of person. I would rather save myself $500, and tackle it myself. 

The photo shows what my floors look like now. Last night I found the time to whip out my orbital hand sander to begin sanding the floors by myself, by hand!

I was amazed at how nice the areas I covered looked with barely any effort on my part. My little Makita sander is a pretty awesome tool, and it seems to be scrapping up and sanding the floors right down to their natural beauty. 

I figure in due time, the entire parlor will be done and sanded, and ready for stain. 

I will come back and update this here blog piece as I move along in this particular room/floor. 

OK- So here is the during photo. This is the floors after about 6 hours of hand sanding using the orbital hand sander. I have to go down a little deeper till the wood is pale before I can stain it. However, 6 hours on my butt, and this was the result, which is not bad at all. What a difference! And they said it could not be done! Pssshhh.... it was actually quite easy and the room is rather large too.

But the best news is this:

When we first purchased the home we were told that only the parlor and small hallway were wood floors. However after making my way around the room, and getting to the threshold that connects the parlor to the kitchen, I discovered that the wood floors do in fact travel through the kitchen.

So--- tonight's big project when I get home from work is to yank up the old floors, and the baseboard laid down on top of the wood floors to reveal the wood floors in the kitchen! Crazy people who covered them up!

I am so excited about this and cannot wait to just get home today to begin!

That's me down there, excited to discover the wood floors in the kitchen! We don't know how far they travel, but we are about to find out~!

For those wondering, the hand sander I am using is the one available in the link below- the smaller 5 inch orbital sander.

In order to sand wood floors, you will want to use a low grit- anywhere from 20-30. I am using a 30 grit, only because they did not have the discs available in a 20 grit.

When all is said and done, I will re-post the finished product on this blog.