To achieve professional quality results you must start with the proper equipment to get the job done right.
A place that you can rent a hardwood floor sand.
Sanding removes on average about 1 16 inch of material and sometimes more so you can safely sand a solid hardwood floor two or three times but no more.
A walk behind sander like a drum floor sander and a floor edger to get into the corners and smaller nooks and crannies.
Sure it may take longer to remove old finishes than it.
The groove overlap is typically about 1 4 inch thick.
A tongue and groove floor cannot be sanded as many times as a plank floor.
You must sand the floor completely several times over with progressively finer sandpaper in order to make sure the floor is as smooth as possible before refinishing it.
You have to remove the finish on the floor before you can properly sand out all the scratches and imperfections that have accumulated over the years.
You ll need two kinds of sanders for the process.
Unless you plan to sand many floors in your lifetime the best choice for do it yourself floor refinishing is the random orbital sander.
Once you re done sanding you can stain the floor.
Since the sanding process can remove a lot of surface your floor needs to be at least 3 4 thick.
Typically you would do this with a drum floor sander a large piece of equipment you can rent from home improvement stores.
If your floor is thinner than 3 4 you may want hire a pro to avoid accidentally sanding down to the subfloor.