Concrete slab floors have become, in the last several decades, the predominant way of flooring a house. While the “traditional” method of building with a raised foundation–joists over a crawlspace or basement–definitely has its merits, there are many parts of the world where concrete slab is the most logical way to go. But how...
An underlayment is the “meat” in the wood flooring sandwich. Top is the finish flooring; that is, the wood flooring that you see and walk on. Very bottom is the subfloor (okay, well the floor joists are at the very very bottom…). Between the subfloor and finish floor is the underlayment. How thick should...
After you’ve sanding your wood floors, you need to seriously clean them. And I mean seriously. That’s because, unless you happen to live in a barn, those wood floors will be stained and sealed. You may skip the staining part, but you will be sealing them. Any kind of dust remaining on the surface...
Q: I’m planning on sanding my pine floor, but it’s got a number of exposed nail heads. Can I sand right over them and will them sand down or what to do? A: Sanding over exposed nail heads in your wood flooring is a beautiful experience. You run the drum sander across and see...
Sanding wooden floors with a drum sander or even an orbital sander is a big deal. I mean, a really big deal. Myself, I hate hearing blowhard home renovation “experts” (like me) saying, “Ohh, that’s not safe” and “Watch out there, sonny!” But sanding wooden floors with a drum sanding is such a big...
When you’re sanding wooden floors (particularly if you have really crappy floors), the temptation is to really sand the hell out of them. After all, something is motivating you to sand your floors. If you have perfect floors, you wouldn’t be doing this. You sand floors because they are grooved, pitted, stained, worn, scratched,...
It’s not so hard to sand the middle part of a wooden floor. Just stick the drum sander or orbital sander down, and let ‘er rip. But floor edges are a different story. 3 Tips for Sanding Edges of a Wood Floor Can you take off the baseboards without completely destroying your walls? Then...
