It doesn’t matter if you have an older house with wide plank floors that have had years of wear, or a mid-century house with carpets you have decided to remove to reveal the beauty of the hidden wooden floors. With the right tools you should be able to handle refinishing hardwood floors and restore them to their former glory on your own.

While it is true that waxing and buffing can bring the luster back of an old floor, often the best way to regain the original richness and beauty of the wood can only be done by refinishing hardwood floors. But before you start – you need to know if refinishing will do the job or if more attention is needed.

How do you know if refinishing hardwood floors is enough? Take a close look at your floor. Walk across it – does it feel “spongy” or do some of the floor boards sag when you are walking on them? Are some of the boards buckled or warped? Before you consider starting refinishing hardwood floors, be sure to replace any boards with these kinds of problems. Look at the remaining boards.

Do they just have shallow scratches or perhaps just a dull surface? This is the kind of floor that can be corrected by refinishing. However, you will need to look closely at the boards, perhaps at the edges or near where the heat register is located. The reason to check is that you can only sand down a board so many times before you have removed too much wood. If the floor is in an older house, check and be sure you have enough good wood on the planks you need to refinish before considering whether to you can begin refinishing hardwood floors or not.

Also, in preparation for refinishing hardwood floors, you will need to check the floor for cracks and gaps between boards. Wood has a tendency to contract and expand depending upon the humidity around it.  Generally, wood is drier in the winter when home heating makes the air drier and the boards contract.

Your boards should have some room between them to allow them to expand in the summer. However, if you are checking in the summer and see gaps between the boards, you will need to fill them or you will have even larger gaps in the winter. It is your judgment call; you know how humid your area is and how much of a problem this could become. The important thing is to consider this and fill in any gaps that need refilling before sanding in preparation of refinishing hardwood floors.

You can get most of the equipment you will need to refinish hardwood floors at your nearby hardware or rental shops. Here is what you will need:

A floor sander

A Floor Sander and Edger

A Burnisher Floor Machine

An Orbit Sander

Putty Knives

Wet/Dry Vaccum

and don't forget earmuffs and respirators to keep safe!

Because the sanding is the most important step, check out this YouTube video on what grits to use and some great do’s and don’ts for finishing hardwood floors:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uUzP_R-Uic

Bill Link does a series of home improvement videos on Metacafe. Here is a great one on refinishing hardwood floors that is easy to understand and really shows you how to go about this:

Http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1627960/how_to_refinish_a_hardwood_floor/