Wood Floor Finishing Question

[John Doe]

My newly built condo has beech wood flooring that has been stained dark a la walnut. In the same building the penthouse units have a patchy light and dark finish that I like better. I was told that it was the same wood flooring that was finished differently. I want to refinish my floor to look like the penthouse units. The patchy finish looks like a fancy floor with different kinds of wood used. The builder's wood floor guy quoted me a price of $6/SF to refinish it. I think it's too high. Can anyone tell me the name of this type of wood finishing? Is it a specialty or can anyone do it? Also, I am thinking of asking for 2 extra coats of polyurethane to make it last, is there a down side to extra poly?

TIA

[mark Ransley]

get more bids, I - we -cant see it

[Edwin Pawlowski]

The finishing is the easy part. The hard part is getting the old finish off. It must be sanded. Yes, it can be a DIY project, but you can also screw up the floors if not done properly as the sanders are very aggressive.

I have no idea what the cost of a pro doing the job is. Yes, it sounds high compared to the cost of a new floor. Make a couple of phone calls to others first. Ed

[Bay Area Dave]

if you add extra coats, be sure that all but the final coat are GLOSS, if you want a satin or semi gloss luster. the reason is that a bunch of coats of satin/semi will obscure the wood. If the final coat is satin/semi over gloss, you'll still have the sheen you desire w/o hiding the beauty of the wood.

Six bucks sounds a bit high. I live in SJ, CA and got a quote of less than $5 a foot, but maybe there are "extenuating circumstances" in your situation?

dave

dave

John Doe wrote:

[Bob]

Refinished some 40 year old floors about two years ago using a sander that was rented from HomeDepot. It looked like a large palm sander and was quite easy to use, compared to the rotary types that twirl people around if they are not familiar with using it. The easiest part was laying on the finish after cleaning up the mess that was created from all that damn sanding. Particles of flippin' dust everywhere, as far as my red eyes could see.. A roll of plastic, heavy duty vacuum cleaner and a Wife taking large amounts of sedatives to blur the image of what the house looks like at the present moment are all essential tools to pull this job off.