WoodFlooringGuy.com

I am purchasing a home that has painted hardwood floors. The home is nearly 100 years old, and I have no idea what type of wood it has or how many layers of awful paint have been added to the natural wood. Is there hope for restoring this floor to its natural wood? If not, what type of paint do you recommend so we can at least change the drab colors?

I installed a floating laminate floor, but my calculations were a little off. I now have a 1 1/2 inch to 1 3/4 inch gap after putting in my last row. Is there trim that can go around that? Currently, the room has a 2 inch baseboard around the house.

Do you have any tips for removing scuff marks? They seem to be only on the surface of the floor, i.e. not into the wood itself.

Can you install hardwood over laminate?

I applied some touch up paint but it does not match my floor color and I would like to remove it. How can this be done?

I really need your help can laminated flooring make you sick? I installed ***** flooring in our old house and soon after developed light-headedness and severe dizziness. We later moved into a rental until our new house was built and the rental house only had tile in it . I noticed within a week or to all my light hardheadedness was gone and all the dizziness to. We could only think of one thing the flooring. We put it in our new house but only in the great room and with in two weeks I started feeling sick again. I never had a problem with carpet in the house only until we put in the ***** flooring. Can you please help me with a answer.

I bought an older house and decided to have wood flooring installed in the sunken living room (on concrete slab). Before installing the flooring my contractor said there was a spot that was not level, he charged me $400.00 to level the spot before he would install the wood flooring (not laminate). I paid him to level the spot and he installed all but the last two feet wide and twenty feet long section. Within the first week the floor buckled up over that spot. He came back and removed the flooring over the supposed leveled spot and said I must have a water leak. He now wants $500.00 more to replace the flooring over that spot, nothing about even finishing the job (the 2′x20′ section). From everything I’ve read in researching probable causes for this problem, it seems that he didn’t install properly. The spot was NOT leveled and there are uneven levels of concrete where he “leveled” the spot. When he removed the few planks of buckled flooring, the pieces left are cracking if you step on them, where the concrete is unleveled and there is nothing under to support it. I can find no signs of a water leak. What can I do to make the contractor fix and complete the job right? How do I prove it was installers error and not the supposed water leak?

We have a few small stains on our hardwood floor. They are either from water or from paint. Can we sand and recoat just those small spots, or would we have to do the whole floor?

My husband and I took off the carpet, nails, etc. This past weekend my husband and dad sanded the floors, vacuumed the dust up with a shop vac and then used a damp mop to wipe up remaining dust. The vacuuming and mopping in some parts or the room were done against the grain because at the time we didn’t think it mattered. All of the sanding was done with the grain of the wood. Before we stained the floors , we noticed two areas in the downstairs that appeared to have streaks across them. The streaks/lines were the same size as the mop. We lightly sanded those areas again and then stained. The next day, those areas had very noticeable lines/streaks that didn’t blend in with the rest of the floors. Did the mopping or vacuuming cause this? What can be done to fix this problem?

We are removing 3/4″ X 2 1/2″ oak flooring from an old farm house. Do you have any advice as “How” to remove the dirt, grime, soot, etc. in the “tongue and groove area”. The dirt is packed in and hard to remove with a stiff brush.

I’m planning on re-finishing my hardwood floors after discovering black, and I mean black, pet stains. I’d had some boards replaced before for the same reason, and thought I solved the problem with the dog, but not so. I didn’t have the floor resanded and refinished, then, just boards being replaced after being taken from another room.

We purchased our home ~ 6 years ago and the former owners said that the hardwood floors had a “gymnasium finish”. From what I’ve been able to find this means a penetrating oil finish. What is the best product to clean and buff this type of floor? Where can I find a home-model floor polisher? My mother had one years and years ago with rotating bristles and snap on soft pads.

I am wondering what kind of damage a window air conditioning unit could cause. I had a window unit in for about one week during this exceptionally hot and humid summer, and there is an area of flooring that has buckled. Could this have been caused by the weather, or could a small window unit cause a floor to bubble up in such a short period of time?

We are having hard wood floors installed in our living room, hallway and dining room. However, we have dark, shiny trim around the doorways and base/floor trim. we want to paint the trim white. Should the trim be painted white BEFORE OR AFTER THE installation of the hardwood floors?

A few people have told me that they think this might be white oak….I don’t know that for sure. My dog has been running around on the unfinished floor for weeks now (as a test) and only in the sunlight do I see nail marks from his paws. Here’s the questions: I have seen floors sanded and polyurethaned and then the dog gets yelled at all the time for running and scratching the floor up. I don’t want to go through that I don’t want to have to keep sanding and reapplying polyurethane on the floors every year either. What’s a gal to do??? A man at the Home Depot here suggested that I clean the floor really well and just apply turpentine on the bare wood as a natural sealer. Please advise me. I have to complete this task soon and I want to do it right the first time. I’ve seen your Q and A list and those people are kicking themselves for their hard work gone bad. I don’t want to go through that. When I am done with the floor, I will restore the baseboards.

I’m designing a gallery where I’m using maple flooring, I’m trying to figure out how to fix it down to the floor, but keep getting stuck. The floor is constructed with steel joists with corrugated metal grating above with cast in place concrete poured on top. How do you attach the maple flooring? Do you use 18mm plywood as a base, if so how do you fix it down? Is timber flooring on a concrete surface completely unsuitable, or can I get away with it?

Can I add an oil based stain to an oil based polyurethane varnish and apply over my pre-sanded maple floor? Will this technique avoid the problem of staining maple floors and ending up with a blotchy stain look? What is a better solution? I want to avoid the light contemporary look of maple in my 130 year old house.

I bought a house last fall that has hardwood throughout a joint living room/dining room area. The floor is in good condition, however, it needs “something.” All I have done since I moved in is to vacuum and dust mop it often. It now looks like it needs a cleaning in some areas. I can see my dog’s paw prints and the floor just looks blurry, not shiny. It does have a couple of lighter spots where furniture use to sit that is now gone, but they aren’t in conspicuous areas to worry about. The problem is…I have NO idea what kind of finish is on the floor. The color is about the same as my medium light oak kitchen table. Each board is slightly beveled on the sides and ends, it doesn’t “feel” waxed…you can actually feel the grain of the wood when you rub your hand across it. If I scrape my fingernail in between the beveled ends I get a tiny yellow finish or something..it’s such a small amount I can’t tell if it feels waxy or what.. I’ve asked at our local Home Depot and Lowe’s and all I get is really scary answers of don’t put anything on it until you know what kind of finish is there. No wax on a urethane finish, no urethane cleaners or finishes on a waxed or unfinished finish…or I will “ruin the floor and it will cost thousands to fix it…………Good grief..I was thrilled to have hardwood, now I’m terrified I’m going to ruin them. I don’t know WHAT to do to them or how to tell what kind of finish is on there. The house was built in the late 70s…BUT…I don’t know that the hardwood is that old. There was an addition built on to the dining room about 10 years ago and the floor has all the same look… Can you please offer any suggestions on what I can do to figure out how to take care of my beautiful wood floors.

I have a sloping floor, from both edges to center is 11/2 inches, it seems to be around the chimney, but from the basement the rafters seem tight and not sloping. I was thinking of putting 4 adjustable jacks around the chimney and jacking the floor up slowly so not to crack the walls, or leave the jacks in place to stop the floor from sloping any more and using a filler to level the floor. Can you please tell me what I can do?

I am installing a bamboo floor that is 5/8″ thick. I cannot find any place near me that rents an air powered flooring nailer (or shims to adjust a 3/8″ or 3/4″ ) to accommodate 5/8″ thick flooring. How should I install it? Pre-drill and use a hammer and nail set? Other options please?