Home Makeover: How to refinish wood floors

How to refinish wood floors – part 2

Hi! Welcome to part 2 and the reveal of our wood floors! I am super excited to share part 2, how to refinish wood floors, for you because honestly, it was a huge project for my husband and I and it is very rewarding for me to share this with our readers and receive your awesome support. That being said, we are so glad we are done and we LOVE the flooring now.

If you missed Part 1: how to remove carpet and prep your floors, you can check it out here.

How to refinish wood floors like the pros for CHEAP! - www.classyclutter.net — I left you yesterday with this image of our clean, prepped floors. (See part 1 of the tutorial here)

After you’re all prepped and ready to go, you will mop the floors fully to condition the wood. I read that this step opens the wood grain preparing it to be stained. Make sure not to completely saturate the floors, just a light mopping will do just fine. Wait at least 30 minutes before applying stain until wood is completely dry.

Once the floor is dry, it’s time for my favorite part. STAIN! I had an awesome friend give me a gallon of stain that her family used when redoing their floors. It was Minwax stain in Cherry. Thanks Denyse!!! You’re the best! Her floors were gorgeous so I knew it would be great in my home too!

We mixed it up really really well and went to town on those floors. To apply the stain, we used an old rag, a dry “buffing” rag and rubber gloves. Start in the far corner of the room and start applying. You will dip your rag into the stain, basically scrub the floor with it then use the clean buffing rag to get any excess with the dry rag. Make sure to wear rubber gloves because the stain will stain your hands for days and it looks nasty. Lesson learned on a previous project. haha!

PS. Those are my hubby’s hands in my kitchen gloves.

I love the look of the color as it went on the floor. It looked a little red at first but it darkened and deepened in color as we went over it and as it dried.

Here’s the stain all done! One more step! Seal with polyurethane for floors.

This 1-gallon can runs $29.99 at Home Depot and we really liked it. Be sure to read the directions thoroughly and make sure you work in a ventilated area. We opened all the windows in the room because the oil-based poly is very potent smelling. The water based option is good too but you will have to do more coats but the smell is not as strong… so, pros and cons to both. We had good luck with this one though.

You will want to use a smooth roller to apply the polyurethane just like you are painting a wall with a roller. It’s quite simple!

Let it dry according to the directions but we left the room for a full 24 hours before walking on it and putting furniture back in the room. You want to make sure it’s FULLY dry so nothing damages the floor and so the poly doesn’t damage your furnishings.

Finally, we repainted the doors, trim and vents in the room so the bones of the room looked like new!