I'm a Professional Stripper

I'm finally working on the floors again. There are two bedrooms upstairs that still need to be refinished. So, I'll be spending much of the day wearing my Darth Vader mask.

Have you ever tried to refinish a hardwood floor? It's an interesting experience. The first time I set out to get this done, I could only find varnish removers that were flammable and had warnings all over them saying "not for floors!" I said "to hell with it," and bought some anyway. Eventually, I found the non-flammable stuff. The major difference, from what I can tell, is that the non-flammable version burns more if you get it on your skin. Both have warnings all over the container, telling you to wear a mask, open the windows, and dial the first two digits of 9-1-1 (just in case).

But, along with the warnings about hazardous vapors, the non-flammable container comes with a spray bottle applicator. COOL! You can render it aerosol to get the job done quicker! This gets really ugly around the base boards, because it strips the paint off of them, too. This chemical really is nasty stuff. You'll need chemical gloves, chemical goggles, a chem respirator, lots of rags, a plastic scraper, steel buckets, and work clothes. I've seen it eat a polystyrene cup and a plastic paint brush, so be sure that everything you use is the right type of plastic!

This is probably the third time I've applied the varnish remover to my floors. Every time I've rented the floor sander, I still manage to gum up the pads. This time will be different, though. My dad and I finally learned the trick. First, you need to get as much varnish off as you can. The floor needs to be really clean, or you're going to be buying a lot of sand paper. Before we rent the floor sander, we go over the floor with a belt sander and stripping pads. They get gummed up, too. But, you can use a wire brush to clean them off. My home inspector said you can even spray them down with WD-40 if you want to get more use out of them.

Once the floor is clean, the finishing part is fun. I've been using the Varathane sander from Menards. It's like a giant three-pad orbital sander, and it works really well. It also gets very close to the wall, so you don't need to do much work with edgers if you pull the trim boards off. It doesn't use a very fine grain of sand paper, though, so I can see some of the marks it left behind.

Staining is another adventure. I still haven't got this down quite right. You can see a few places where I've over stained, or didn't let the stain set as much. The best stain in the house was done with a Swiffer. We used a foam applicator to apply the stain, and the swiffer to mop it up. The result was very even. Don't even bother trying to paint the stain on, it'll be a disaster!

I used a quick drying polyurethane sealer. Because we weren't living in the house yet, I was able to put a coat or two on all the floors and leave for the night. Later, I found out after all of this that there is a more pet-proof top coat. When I need to resurface, I'll have to look into that.