pine floors

[rdsherman (WavyGlass)]

Hi, About to tackle our floors in our 1870 farmhouse. The floors are pine. I realize everyone will have their personal preferences, but I'm concerned most about preserving their integrity. They have never been sanded. The outer 3 feet along the walls was varnished and then either shellacked or waxed. Is it best to simply try and touch up this finish to do the entire floor? In places the boards are cupped slightly so I am concerned about the amount of sanding required to level them. I'd love to hear others opinions.

[Nettie]

I had a similar effect on my wood floors where they had used linoleum rugs in each of the rooms and then painted the perimeter. I did sand the paint off with an orbital sander- much gentler than a drum sanding and doesn't remove much of the wood. I think trying to touch up the floor and then finishing the center to blend in would be quite difficult.

[rdsherman (WavyGlass)]

I'll probably have to sand them. Te question then becomes do I stain them as they were before, or leave the color natural. The woodwork in the house is red elm and the floors were stained to match.

[KJS (WavyGlass)]

We have fir floors on our second floor. A local floor refinishing company refused to do the job of refinishing them because "they wouldn't look new and we would be disappointed." Huh?!? I probably looked at him like he had lobsters crawling out of his ears. Out of sheer anger and frustration, my daughter and I rented an orbital sander and went at it ourselves. Getting the sander upstairs was harder than the sanding. LOL I didn't expect perfection.... I didn't WANT perfection. I wanted them to look like 100-year-old floors that had been well cared for. I stained them to match the stain originally used on them and LOVE, LOVE, LOVE them.

Take a look at them once you've sanded them and see if you prefer the natural color or think they should be stained. They may look a little nekked and pale against the rest of your woodwork. But it's a matter of personal taste.

Either way, be assured that it will be well worth the effort. Even if you can't get out all the cupping and have to do a little hand sanding, your house will thank you!

[Vintrest (WavyGlass)]

Pine is a soft wood so big drum sanders are dangerous to use especially if the handler is not very experienced in floor sanding. Orbital sanders can also cause damage. The guys who bought the oldest house in our neighborhood-an Italianate from the 1870's-went to town on the floors with large orbital sanders equipped with course grit paper to speed up the job. It left deep swirls throughout the boards that could not be removed with subsequent sandings so the "fix" was to stain the old growth Yellow pine boards almost black and finish over them. Sad result but more sanding would have exposed the tongue and groove joints and/or square nails. I think its best to remove the least amount of material necessary to produce a satisfactory result. Total flatness is not necessary as some dipping or cupping is part of the story in the character of the boards. I'd start with 100 grit and go up to 180 or 220 using open coat paper. If it took more time but saved more of the floor boards, I think that's a reasonable trade off. If a perfectly flat and smooth floor is a must, better to put resin paper over the old floor and put down a new flooring overlay. I personally like the old floors that look old; those wanting everything to look brand new in an old house have probably been watching too many episodes of TOH on PBS-I prefer a more preservation friendly approach but to each his or her own tastes.

[Kashka-Kat]

I would agree with the above poster except "to each his or own tastes."

I would add that hopefully one would be open minded and allow their tastes to change in response to new information. Thankfully the 1980s-90s fetish for sanding floors to death so they look light and new has faded and there is now appreciation for old wood that looks old (new flooring now made to look intentionally distressed!)

Any sanding should be limited to only what is necessary to smooth and brighten it - smooth as in it feels silky underfoot, not that it is flattened and cups removed.

If there is shellac it can melt and burn from the friction of the sandpaper and leave scorch marks - would need to be removed with alcohol first. So that being the case, before deciding to sand vs. not sand, stain vs not stain.... I think I would first experiment in an out of the way place with removing it - see how deep the dark stain goes - if not very deep then you'll see that the color and grain of 140 year old growth pine is AMAZINGLY beautiful just as it is and I honestly would leave it unstained. it will have a rich deep glowing honey-gold tone that you can never get from a stain. If the stain goes deep then I MIGHT consider staining to even out the tone over the whole floor.

In short - they are not making old growth pine anymore! That's about what's left of the forests that used to cover north america The law of supply and demand means that reclaimed wood of this quality is really worth a lot these days in dollars and cents terms. If you had a 1870 table would you be sanding it flat and expecting it to look new? Noooo!!!

[rdsherman (WavyGlass)]

Thank you. These replies are very helpful. I think we'll try light sanding then Waterlox and take it from there.

[Dan]

I'm hand scraping my heart pine kitchen floor with a carbide scraper. It had some worn paint on it. It's a lot of arm work and bending over and it takes a long time relatively speaking but I'm really so happy that I decided to do this because the character remains. It does remove wood but you have control over what you remove and leave.

I will say that I'm only doing 65 square feet so it's an experiment and might be unrealistic to do my entire house, although I've gotten to the point where I could probably do 100 square feet in a day if I worked steadily. I'm still on the same blade, and it's dulled no doubt, but actually the dull blade works ok with a sort of back and forth technique instead of just pulling the tool. Another way to lessen the amount of scraping needed is to clean the bare wood or strip the finish first, then just scrape it afterwards to get it nice and even and to expose just a bit of new wood, which in my floor's case, brought out fresh red pine (and that intoxicatingly delightful smell). In fact, scraping poly is probably not a viable option as it would be too much work.

It's also a way to become intimate with every nick and low spot in your floor. You can also do it at your own pace. I do a few passes several times a day typically and it's almost done.

Anyway, it's another less-explored option for those who enjoy quietude and labors of love.

[HB2]

I've done a few hundred sqft in our house and the method that has worked best for my painted floors was to brush on a coating of 50/50 blo and turpentine to soften the paint a bit and then go at it with an infrared heat gun (silent paint remover) and a scraper.

Then i go back with a hand held random orbital sander with 80 grit discs and lightly remove the rest of the paint. I put the shop vac out the window and run a hose to the sander to keep the dust (and lead paint) out of the house. Then I test finish a patch to see if the swirl marks are visible. where swirl marks are visible I'll go back and hit the floor with 120 grit in the ROS. I've been using straight tung oil for a matte finish. Looks good in my opinion.

On our second floor, the floors are soft pine so the sander works quickly. On the first floor, the boards appear to be quarter sawn pine and old growth stuff with a lot of growth rings visible. This flooring goes through sanding discs like crazy cause they get clogged up with resin. I was only getting about 1 sq/ft per disc on that floor.

[Eperot]

I disagree with some of the above posters. I am all for preserving original floors but as long as the wood has not been sanded too much already, most old floors can take a fairly heavy sanding. Using a drum sander is the best bet because you won't end up with swirl patterns that you can get with orbital sanders. Our floors had lots of splintery wood, with cups and valleys, painted borders and generally looked like crap. A drum sander can take care of all of that. They are insanely easy to use as long as you realize you must keep moving at a uniform pace, and feather the ends by easing up on the lift handle while still moving before you come to a stop. If you can do that, you can sand like a pro. Try a fine grit first to get a feel for it...a finish grit won't dig any divots in the floor. Then start with a heavy grit to go with the grain across the crowns...you will see the fresh wood exposed and the shoulders untouched. Keep making passes until the crowns have been taken down to a uniform height. Follow with progressively finer grits until the floor is totally smooth and free of visible sanding marks. Vac the floor between each grit change. I finished with three hand rubbed coats of Sutherland Welles Tung Oil Finish and the results are outstanding. The floors look anything but "new", however they have a uniform smoothness and color that really lets the tung oil show off the beautiful color of the wood.
In the end I probably took off anywhere from 1/32nd of an inch to a max of 1/8th. Given the thickness of the floor boards, that is nothing.