Sanding/polishing DIY floorboards anyone?

The home we are moving into next year has very old dated carpet and I was thinking of polishing the floorboards under them myself (assuming they are in good condition) My parents paid a professional to do there dining room which was only about 1/4 of the size of the living area I want to do and it cost them $1800 recently. So is it achievable? The place will be vacant for about 6months before we move in so there is plenty of time to come and go. Has anyone done this before and what does it involve? I assume I will need to hammer the nails in so I can sand the floor with a hired sander without the sand paper catching. And maybe putty up and holes or cracks to. Once this is done do you just sand the floor then lacker it? What about staining? I'm really hoping to improve the appearance of the place without spending a fortune. And I have about 6months to do so before we move in.

My parents did a lot of the building on their house themselves, I was 15/16 when they were doing it. We put down the wooden floors ourselves (or Dad laid them, I got the totally crappy job of punching the nails & puttying the holes).

If you think the nails will be high enough to hit the sander when you go over it, definitely get a punch and hammer them down. Then go over with putty. I found the easiest thing with the putty is to have a damp rag handy and wipe off the excess, instead of waiting for it to dry and sanding it.

Something to be wary of with the sander is the paint around the skirting boards - one of our rooms had been painted before the sander went through and it ruined the paint at the bottom. I don't know if that's just because there wasn't anything to protect the walls and there should have been, but the sander needs to get right up to the edge to make it all look even.

Then we got this special broom thingy. It had a wooden head that you put lambswool or something on, I don't really know sorry. Then we basically poured the polish on the floor and spread it along the grain in big sweeps with the broom thing. I have no idea how you do a stain, I think you have to kind of rub it on with a cloth?

That's all I can think of for now!

DH did this 2 Christmases ago. We went with Tung oil as we a not a fan of the highly polished look. Will need updating about every 7 years, but worth it for the look and feel. It is kind of soft and takes wear quite well. Also easier to apply than an epoxy based one, which requires a light sand between coats. The first coat of epoxy roughens things up and you need to knock them back.

It was quite doable, but we did have trouble with some of the edges due to section which had some glue there from previous flooring. Bunnnings was good for hire, if need be you can take back any extra sand paper etc that you don't use

I have not done it myself as I had freinds who did theirs and you can actually see where they sanded for too long or have not done the polish right etc and it looks awful. I am far too fussy to have things not quite right and in our case the boards are paritcularly soft (though not pine) so th eslightest error will stand out.

Firstly I would pull up carpet in a small room and get someone who knows timber to come in and have a look to see whether its a hard wood or a soft wood floor. Then you'll need to pull out any staples and get a putty for the holes. Knock in any nails that have lifted then start sanding. Depending on the colour you want you CAN put it straight on to the floor OR you can apply the colour to the finishing product (ie gloss if you want shine) which softens a harder colour. You can also mix and match various shades to create a colour that you really like.

Ours was done by a professional and he used 3 different colours blended and then put it in the gloss and the final result was lovely.

A few things to consider:

1 - in the Winter floor boards are FREEZING and I mean really really cold.
2 - they look great but are noisy
3 - air can pass easily through them so cold in the winter and can actually be warmed and retain some heat from summer winds
4 - doing them yourself WILL save money but I recommend practising in a small room/area first so if you don't quite get the hang of it, it will not be too much to replace the carpet :D

I do recommend getting a few quotes from professionals for doing the floorboards, as well as someone who does new carpet and possibly even doing a floating floor.

It will be handy to know what you might be up for incase the job is more challenging than you expectedand you need someone in to finish it.

I am all for DIY so I say go for it - I wish I had the guts to do floorboards myself, I'd havwe the entire house done and fill it with rugs :D

Nae x

DH and i did ours (at a previous house). You have to be pretty strong to be able to work the machine and control it so all your movements are smooth. The edging machine is particularly tricky. We took the skirting boards off which alllowed us to get bit closer to the wall. they looked awesome when they were done. i couldn't have handled the machine by myself (but i'm a bit unco), so DH did most of the machine work.

The lambswool applicator thingy is the best for putting the colour on. We used a water based 'Cabbott's Clear Floor', which is really long lasting and not as stinky as 2-pac. When putting this on, you want really long smooth strokes and to go over everywhere just once each coat. After the 1st coat, we lightly sanded to get rid of any rough bits (with a hand sander). you want to get rid of all the dust before the 'paint' stuff each time.

good luck!

we did ours 11 years ago when we bought this house let me say we will never do it again we will pay for a proffessional while it looked great it almost cause me to have a mental breakdown honeslty it was not worth the heart ache the sheer OMG job mind you we did the lounge/dining hall and 3 bedrooms so was a big job and my hubby si very handy even he has admitted he will never do it again especially on old timber that has had carpet laid on it

We did one room in our old house and it almost destroyed us!! That machine has a mind of it's own. And it's loud. And dusty. And awful...

We had the boards in this house redone because they were looking a bit dodgy. We paid $2K cash for a four bedroom, three living area house. They took them back to bare boards and the result is beautiful. Shop around and offer cash if you can.

Mmmm you girls have turned me off doing them lol. Sounds alot harder then I expected althought I knew I couldn't get a professional looking job. The house is an old farm house. Its actually two houses joined together. The main house only has carpet in the living room which is huge (about the side of 2 large lounge rooms) DH plans on reducing the size by adding in a hall way and another bedroom so the lounge room will only be half the size it currently is. Thats the room I want to polish the floorboards. There is vinyl in 2bedrooms which we want to carpet and floor boards in another 2 bedrooms. Maybe I'll just wait for the tennant to move out before I decide exactly what to do.