Need advice on how to repair a wooden floor.

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cjechurchill

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Hi all,

I have bought a property which has a wooden floor but as you can see it is rather damaged.

I think it is a solid wood floor, maybe walnut? I'm not sure. I don't think it is laminate or veneer because there is a part of the floor with a deeply worn grove and you can see that it is solid wood all the way down.

I'm not sure what the best way would be to repair it. Should I sand the damaged area first, then stain it? I need advice.
 

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it looks very much like superficial damage to the finish, TBH and so exactly what the floorboards actually are made from is not important. (NB depending on how deep your scratch is, some engineered boards, for example will have upwards of 6mm of real wood on top of the substrate).

Patch sanding etc will work but TBH if it was me I'd bite the bullet, hire a Bison Sandglider and sand the whole floor down then refinish it afresh. Reason why I advocate the Sandglider is that it's very very good at keeping dust out of the room etc
 
I don't think it's proper walnut, looks more like that dirt cheap African hardwood that I can't remember the name of that they used to use to make faux mahogany and walnut furniture out of. Possibly Idigbo? There's a couple that look very similar and can be hard to narrow down especially with a stain on. I suspect you will be very surprised when you start sanding it that it will come up very white/yellow once you go past the stain.

Get a professional in, everyone likes the idea of sanding and finishing their own floor but once they start they wish they never did. It's very hard work without the proper gear and it's still hard work with the proper gear. It's one of the very few jobs I don't recommend someone do it themselves.
 
My daughter and I hired a floor sander from HSS and sanded a very nasty-looking bedroom floor of a 1930s semi to a very good finish in a couple of hours.

Unbelievably dusty and the bang when the sanding belt hits a nailhead and shatters is startling, but we would do it again without hesitation.

In my opinion, it's an easy DIY job that will save you a lot of money over hiring a tradesman to do it.

Sanded down then three coats of clear varnish, it still looks the business four years later.

Martin.
 
How big is the floor?

I have done similar jobs many times with my own tools if the area is small enough (say 20 square metres) or hired in for larger spaces. I have a very good random orbital sander (Mirka in my case) and with the right open weave disks and vacuum dust extraction it is quick and almost totally dust free. Sometimes the Makita belt sander (large) or Elu belt sander (smaller) are pressed into service, and a multi tool or triangle sander (or a scraper) with sanding pads on to deal with corners. I would start with 40 grit pads.

You don't really know what you're dealing with until you get the finish off and see whether its coloured varnish or stain. The trend at the moment is away from these dark brown finishes anyway. You have nothing to lose by sanding an area and seeing what you get.

If you do feel you want to stain it, and it's a bit patchy, if you have not stained floors before I might seek professional help at that stage. It's not difficult but good results take a bit of skill and experience.
 
cjechurchill":33lg9boa said:
Hi all,

I have bought a property which has a wooden floor but as you can see it is rather damaged.

I think it is a solid wood floor, maybe walnut? I'm not sure. I don't think it is laminate or veneer because there is a part of the floor with a deeply worn grove and you can see that it is solid wood all the way down.

I'm not sure what the best way would be to repair it. Should I sand the damaged area first, then stain it? I need advice.
Quite easy to do,Need to wire wool or vary very fine.course floor paper and you can rub back the damaged areas,Then apply fiddes wax and polish is with a polishing brush,I would go for the rugger brown and apply layer by layer and polish each time until it matches.

Fiddes - Supreme Furniture and Woodwork Wax Polish - 400ml - All Colours

The Pine Drill Brush - Wax Polishing Buffing Drill Bit Attachment (PB4)
 

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