Refinishing Hardwood Floors // START TO FINISH

why hello there brent here with bring your own tools and on today's episode if you want to learn how to refinish hardwood floors to their original glory from this to to this well keep on watching let it started [Music] [Music] before we get to the hardwood floor refinishing there's a bit of backstory on this project because this beautiful lake chelan that i've spent my summer vacations at with my family since i was 5 years old we've been lucky enough to stay at a family friend's house for a number of years but this summer i realized the hardwood floors they are in desperate need of some repair because of all the water damage that has occurred over the years and that's where byot comes in because my dad and i took it upon ourselves to say this winter we are going to come over for free and fix these hardwood floors for you just to say a big huge thank you for all the amazing memories that we've created at this amazing cabin after all the furniture is removed i then go around the entire perimeter of the hardwood floors and removing all of the wall base but i do strongly suggest numbering in numerical order all the base so it's easy reinstallation once it is finally time to reinstall all the base once all the base is fully removed it's now time for some protection and protection in this case comes in the form of a blue tape because dust can get everywhere yes if you don't tape off areas then this dust could easily get into those areas and then you'll be cleaning for hours if not days and no one wants that after you put in so much time and energy to these amazing floors i do all the sides including the bottom of each door and then also make sure we wrap off all the cabinets and any of the walls that have windows because we don't want all the dust to get into the blinds vents stairwells fireplaces and so forth but the beautiful thing for this project is that once everything's protected we're ready to rock and roll and the first step is getting a drum sander yes this type of drum sander will there's a lot of different types of walk behind drum sanders but something that's extremely substantial like this is definitely needed on hardwood floor restoration projects luckily these machines are generally quite easy to rent at your local tool rental shop but you have to make sure you have the proper grits now if you haven't used a drum sander before realize that this can be in a very aggressive machine it can take off copious amounts of material very quickly so if you're trying to make sure you're not damaging your floor and you haven't used a machine like this before i would always highly suggest using a higher grit so more like a 100 or 120 before you start using something super aggressive like a 36 yeah much better to screw up on 120 than 36 i assure you let's test it out even if you have done hardwood floor refinishing in the past it is still advisable to take 100 or 120 grit and just do a couple test runs to make sure that you know this type of machine what it's capable of and to just double check the calibration because sometimes especially if they're rental equipment they might be a little finicky after i do a couple passes with 120 i know the machine i know what it's capable of and i stop it remove the 120 and insert 60 grit now i'm inserting 60 grit instead of 36 because i feel 36 is just a little bit too aggressive for those four and if i go a 60 over a 36 there is a higher probability that will have a perfect finish in the end just know that that means you're going to have to take at least one or two extra passes with the 60 grit versus the 36 because the fact that it's less abrasive now there are a number of tips and tricks when working with a drum sander like this but one of the most important tips is how you start and how you end each pass now because the one of the key things about a drum sander is that it's very abrasive you don't want to all of a sudden place the drum sander down and then start walking you actually want to start walking or have some type of momentum going then place the drum sander down start sanding that and then before you stop the drum sander you pull up on the lever to make sure it doesn't dig in on the front end or the back end this is a really key element to make sure you don't have any drum marks at the end of your project because that's not what anyone wants you also have to keep in mind that you don't want to rush any of the staining processed by avoiding any of the grit proceedings so for this project we are going from 60 grit to 80 grit to 100 grit now because we aren't doing a 36 grit that means that we have to do three passes on 60 grit and then go to 80 grit if we were going with a straight 36 grit first then we could probably have just done one pass at 36 then go to 60 then 80 then 100. on any project you are going to get into areas where you do have to go against the grain such as a kitchen like this now you can't always go with the grain but if you do go against the grain just know that it's going to be probably more aggressive towards the wood sanding process than if you go with the grain and make sure that on your finishing passes you're not going against the grate we'll discuss this a little bit more but first let's talk about edging this is an edge sander specifically around the perimeter of your wood flooring basically wherever your drum sander can't get to this thing is extremely powerful too though so watch out and we are starting with 60 grit the same grit that we started with our drum sander this type of edger that i'm using is actually dual purpose because it can get all the areas right next to the walls however it's also designed for toe kicks in the kitchen because we have a kitchen area that we're refinishing this one was more preferred because it has this elongated nose which you can easily position underneath your cabinets and make life a lot easier to try and sand these areas after i completed my first pass of the drum sander i then grabbed my disc sander and lent a hand for all the edge work because the edging does take some time and energy to do now this disc sander by dewalt isn't as powerful as this industrial edge sander however it does do a very good job just not as quick and not as aggressive and as always i'll be providing a full list of tools and materials used on this project in the description below so if you want to check out any of the links for yourself please do so as my dad finishes up the edging with the 60 grit i proceed to start my pass with the drum sander on 60 grit however i'm going across the grain on this pass because i do want a more aggressive pass on this one same exact process as i noted on the first pass however the first one didn't quite get up as much as i wanted to so i went across the grain on the second pass and then follow that up with a third pass with the grain but that's it for 60 grit the next day we came back to it and went to 80 grit with the grain and then after we did everything with 80 grit we proceeded to 100 grit now 100 grit is gonna be our final marker for a finished floor you can go to 120 but for wood flooring 100 to 120 is gonna be your marker for a finished floor sand yeah i know it doesn't sound like a lot coming from a guy that normally uses 220 on all of his wood furniture projects but for a wood flooring 100 grit is plenty after your final pass at 100 you will find areas that you weren't able to get to luckily all we have to do is take a random orbital sander and sand these areas down i would suggest using the same staggered grit pattern whether it's 60 to 80 to 100 however even the random orbital center can't get into other tight-knit areas like these this is a scraper but the blade itself is a flat blade and you do have to watch out for that because some of these blades are ovaled in the middle and some of them are flat just make sure you're using the flat bladed side because you're working on a flat floor after i use my wood scraper i do go back over those areas with my multi-tool with a sanding attachment this multi-tool is key to get into some of these extremely tight-knit areas because if you didn't have this it would be even harder to get to these sanded areas with just a scraper now if you don't have a multi-tool you can use some type of sandpaper with a sanding block and then get into those small tight-knit crevices but the multi-tool will definitely keep things moving at a quicker pace one thing also keep in mind when doing all this work that we haven't actually discussed yet is protection making sure you're wearing a proper respirator as well as some type of eye protection and ear protection over this entire process is key because we don't want to have any of this dust and debris in our lungs or our eyes or damage our ears because some of these machines are extremely loud so keep that in mind and make sure you have the proper safety protection over this entire process including some knee pads at this point in time we are done with all of our drum sanding as well as our edge work at a hundred grit that's over this entire area and as you can see these corners and these edges are looking beautifully and is an extremely nice transition between the drum sander and our edge work however we do want to make sure that we do a final pass with a finish sander now you can use your palm sander for this but i would highly suggest using a finished sander like this because this sander is also extremely easy to rent and will provide a nice clean even finish over the entire surface the drum center can only do so much when providing a smooth surface but this particular sander is actually a random orbital sander still even though it's square and that means that it's going to provide a very nice and very even finish over this entire surface now there are circular versions of these machines and either one is good however with the square version it actually makes it easier to get into the corners of a wall because it has a true 90 edge on all four corners luckily for us on this particular machine because we've already gone up to 100 grit with the drum sander all we have to do is take one pass with the finish sander at 100 grit and we're done you could go to 120 on this saner if you want to but as i noted earlier 100 grit is just fine for a wood floor now we come to the real question of any hardwood floor project to fill or not to fill that is the question now there's a number of different factors to keep in mind whether it's the time of year the type of wood and so forth because wood will move and there's a reason why there's generally space between the wall and your wood floor for the floor to naturally move throughout the year without it buckling at a certain point as you can see we had very tight-knit grain on this project so we didn't have to worry about any filling whatsoever but on your project if you feel you need some wood for filler i'll make sure and leave a link to a reputable brand that i know and trust i did my final walkthrough and i did notice there were a few stripe marks on our hardwood floors right by the front door and that's because i went against the grain with the drum sander you got to be careful with that but luckily for us all i have to do is sand it down with my disc sander and my random orbital sander and we are good to go now that we have all of our sanding fully taken care of we can proceed to removing all of our protection around the kitchen around our walls and so forth and then do a final vacuum now you want to make sure you do your due diligence with removing as much of the dust as possible on these floors which might take a couple passes after i have all the vacuuming taken care of i do put a couple rags into any of the heat vents to make sure that they're fully blocked so if the heat does turn on it's not going to be blowing any dust or debris into our beautiful space which we will be applying a sealer shortly but before sealer we need to tack cloth the floor and if you're wondering what a tack cloth is it's exactly what it's called it's a cloth that is tacky it's sticky and will pick up a considerable amount of sawdust that the vacuum wasn't even able to get i do strongly suggest going around the perimeter first and then vacuuming the center of your floor that way you can get up as much dust as humanly possible as you see my hair is a little dusty from all the sanding but we got that taken care of now it's time for sealing and finishing with hardwood flooring there's numerous brands to choose but on this project we chose bona one of the best and a tried and true product that we've used that i've personally used for years first things first we've got to actually apply a sealer first let it dry then two coats of finish so let's get to the sealer because we have a little time to get this taken care of and onto the next coat with any wood floor project i do always strongly suggest using a sealer first before you apply your finish mainly because you want to make sure you're sealing in all of the crevices as well as allowing the wood to naturally soak up a sealer first because that way it will improve the ability for the finish to lay down more smoothly and have a beautiful level surface after it's all said and done i cut in all the walls door openings and corners first and then apply our sealer with a roller now this roller is a larger version than your normal paint roller and this just means that you'll be able to apply the sealer quicker and a little bit easier however i do go back to a normal size roller when i apply the finish because a smaller roller is easier to control which is very important when it comes to the finish however getting back to the sealer the most important thing of all especially when applying a sealer or finish is to make sure you're applying it as evenly as possible and you don't have any bare spots it's really easy to figure out where the bare spots are when it comes to the sealer but the finish is a little bit harder to see the back roll is key because you don't want any of the finish or sealer to puddle if any of the sealer or finish puddles as it dries it's more likely to leave some type of white film after everything is dry and will just become a little more unsightly and not provide a professional look we are applying this finish directly to the floor but i do suggest trying to apply it to the wet edge and then rolling it out evenly it makes life a little bit easier and keeps the look of your sealer consistent as you're applying the sealer or finish you also want to think about a good game plan to get out of this space without walking in your sealer whether that's the living room the kitchen or just removing yourself all the way out of the house it's key to make sure that you're not walking in the sealer after it's applied so make sure you have a good game plan before you apply because you don't want to all of a sudden be trapped in a corner and then have to walk through your beautiful sealer and the seal coat is on looking beautiful let it dry for a couple hours and then we'll come back to it bye-bye and we're back as you can see seal coats on it's not a perfect finish but that's why it's a seal coat everything gets sealed up beautifully and now we're ready for finish as for finish we are using bona traffic hd which is a waterborne finish and it's a two-parter so you actually pour in the hardener first and then insert the cap this cap actually is a really nice instrument because not only does it provide a smoother pour out of the bucket but also makes sure that none of the sediment that might be in the can will actually get on your finish only finish will be getting out of this camp as i noted earlier we are using a smaller more standard roller for this application process but the cut in is just the same as the sealer applying the finish first in the doorway around the walls and in the corners is key because you want to make sure that as you're rolling you're not rolling into any of these corners you want to actually roll out of it and making sure that as you're applying the finish and evenly distributing it onto the floor we're actually back rolling into that said area and lifting up before we stop if we stop in the finish and we're not actually moving away from the finish that means our finish is going to be more prone to splotches and marks left behind because we have some heavy spots versus where it's a thinly distributed area hopefully that made sense to you but if it doesn't please let me know in the comments section below because i want to make sure that's crystal clear for everyone another item to discuss when using this finish is the fact that it is water-based which means that it is going to be a little bit more expensive than other finishes however that means easy clean up as well as a faster drying time and less vocs the vocs on this product are 150 which are still substantial in the reason why we're still using a respirator when applying the sealer and finish however it's much less pungent than other non-waterborne finishes we are back the next morning and our floor looks absolutely amazing but it is a little rough to the touch which is why you want to slightly abrade the surface with a high grit we're using 240 on this just to go over a quick pass to make sure we get all those small nubs down and sanded before we do our final finish coat just try and make sure you connect it to some type of shop vac so get up as much of the dust as possible now i am using my random orbital sander for this but i wanted to use the floor finisher that we used on the final finished sand however they didn't have a high enough grit as in the highest grit that they had was 100 grit for that and therefore 100 grit at this point is just way overkill and you want to use at least something in the 200s but the good news is is that this really didn't take that long to do it merely took about 90 minutes to do the entire thing by hand plus we have this connected to our shopvac and therefore we're collecting the vast majority of all the dust that's being created i do go back over the entire surface with the vacuum as well as a tack cloth but that's quick and easy and we get to our final coat and just like the first coat the second coat is applied the same exact way doing the perimeter first then rolling it out in each individual section making sure that you're working yourself out of the room not into the finish the other nice thing about a waterborne finish is the fact that it dries extremely quickly this sealer as well as the finish all can be dried within two to three hours depending on the temperature of your room so just keep that in mind especially if you're trying to get into the space within a certain time period but now that we have our second coat fully applied all we have to do let it dry once it's dry we can come back to it and reinstall all of our base as well as any door stops or air vents just make sure you remove the towels out of the air vents first but guess what after we have that taken care of we are done [Music] i do so many projects on this channel but the ones that mean the most to me are the ones that i'm truly able to give back this cabin has provided so many amazing loving memories and this is just a simple way that i was able to give back to this beautiful cabin these floors were in really rough shape but luckily we were able to bring back their original beauty with just a few days of hard work now you gotta love a makeover like this and it is truly one beautiful sexy beast and of course i have some amazing before and after shots of this entire place however before we get to those we need to say a little thank you to our sponsor this week hoover with any of the sponsorships that i do on the channel i'm very precise as to the companies that i want to work with and with hoover it was just something that i had to do why because for the longest time my nickname has been hoover you can guess as to why but with this system they sent over the smart wash pet control system because not only do i have a very large dog but i also have a 14 month old makes plenty of messes along the way and as for carpets it's perfect for a little carpet cleaning last month i went over the entire process on how to use this amazing machine on my own carpets however i knew that my brother also had some relatively dirty carpets that came from both of our dogs as you can see those guys really do find the vacuum quite entertaining especially stella but the one attachment that i wasn't able to show you until now was their amazing wand system specifically for stairs these stairs were carpeted and these stairs were quite dirty but luckily with this attachment which plugs into the machine extremely easy as well as applies the solution and sucks it up in the same exact attachment is pretty ingenious and makes life so much easier when it comes time to get into those tight-knit crevices that would be very difficult if you're trying to bring in a whole machine on the stairs all i need is this perfect little wand if you're in need of some good deep carpet cleaning i'll make sure and leave a link in the description box below on where you can find this amazing machine but as promised let's get back to a few amazing before and after shots yep this is what the front door looks like now but yeah that's what it used to look like let's go back to what it looked like so now yeah that makes me feel a lot better this tremendous before and after can be felt throughout the entire space no matter where you go and if you just look and feel the space of what it used to be compared to what it is now it's night and day and that's what i call one beautiful sexy beast oh yeah

Channel: BYOT

Views: 720,864

Keywords: byotools, diy, do it yourself, how to, bring your own tools, tutorial, start to finish, byot, refinishing hardwood floors yourself, Refinishing Hardwood Floors, how to refinish hardwood floors, diy refinishing hardwood floors, hardwood floor refinishing, floor sanding, diy floor sanding, wood floors, wood flooring, sanding and refinishing hardwood floors, sanding hardwood floors, refinishing hardwood floors diy, floor sander, wood floor transformation, hardwood floor restoration

Id: 5lkKN3wjnug

Length: 24min 43sec (1483 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 20 2021