Best Time to Refinish Hardwood Floors: Planning Your Project for Success
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Are you ready to transform your home by refinishing your hardwood floors? The beginning of a new year is the perfect time to start planning and targeting those home improvement projects that never seem to get completed year after year.
Whether it’s refreshing your space or a complete overhaul, timing your floor refinishing project with your budget and personal schedule can make all the difference.
I thought it would be helpful to share how to plan effectively as well as our own own experience with refinishing our hardwood floors during the months of January and February.
If you remember, we refinished our dark stained red oak floors almost 2 years ago and started right after the new year.
It wasn’t a decision we took lightly because honestly, it would have been easier to just leave them “as-is” and not deal with it but having a plan to update and modernize the house was always on the agenda for resale value and well, it was time to implement!
For me personally, I think an updated kitchen that is geared more towards the “masses” when it comes to resale is the best way to maximize your return and that is one of the biggest reasons why we remodeled our kitchen below.
Refinishing your floors is just one of the components of modernizing a home but it happens to be one of the biggest expenses so the decision shouldn’t be taken lightly.
Some of you may say, “Jess, your floors were beautiful and what a waste of money” but I personally think that when the time comes to sell our house, lighter more modern looking floors will generate a higher return on our investment and I really wanted to enjoy living in the house, with all the updates!
If you have read any of my previous blog posts about how, why and when we bought this house, you will know that the intent was always to update and modernize it from the day we bought it. The process just took a little longer than expected.
Things to Consider Based When Tackling Refinishing Floors
Timing your floor refinishing isn’t just about the season; it’s about what works best for your lifestyle and home environment.
For example, we chose to tackle our refinishing project in the winter, which worked out perfectly for us.
My parents were away for a few months, giving us free rein of the house. This allowed us to completely overhaul the first floor, including their bedroom, without causing them any inconvenience.
Consider The Impact Of The Odor
One of the issues we ran into though, was during the winter in New England means you can’t open the windows to vent out the fumes so keep this in mind if you are choosing an oil-based product as the fumes are horrible!
We ended up choosing a low-odor, water-based finish so the fumes were not really an issue.
Tailoring Your Approach to Different Seasons
Here are a few things to consider based on our experience of refinishing our floors while still living in the house.
Each season brings its own set of challenges and advantages:
- Winter: It might be too cold to open windows, but with the right products, you can minimize indoor air quality issues. It’s also a quieter time for indoor projects since you’re less likely to engage in outdoor activities.
- Spring and Fall: These seasons offer mild weather, which is great for airing out your home and letting finishes cure properly without the rush or delay of extreme temperatures.
- Summer: While it can be too hot and humid in some regions, which affects drying times, it might be the perfect time if you plan a vacation and want to escape the mess and fumes.
Prepping Your House For Refinishing Your Floors
Prepping your home is crucial, regardless of when you decide to start.
During our project, we had to be mindful of the dust, especially with our HVAC system.
Using sanders (like the one below) equipped with effective dust collection systems and HEPA filters helped keep our home clean and the air breathable.
One of my biggest issues that I expressed to our flooring professional (we hired a pro for this job as it would have taken FOREVER for us to complete this project) was I didn’t want dust on the walls, baseboards and doors.
We moved all our furniture to the garage and pool house but I was initially worried about dust swirling around and settling on the walls, doors and light fixtures.
However, our flooring contractor assured us his top-notch machines with dust bags would collect about 98% of the dust—and he was absolutely right!
The buffing machine above was hooked up to a long hose which connected to a dust collection bag.
By the time the project was completed, they must have hauled away a hundred large bags of sanding dust.
The dust might seem like a little thing in the large scheme of things but I seriously wanted no part of vacuuming our walls and scrubbing our light fixtures.
Even the small orbital sander for the stairs was connected to a dust bag.
Another crucial consideration is your HVAC system.
Without the dust baggers attached to the sanding machines, our filters would have been clogged, potentially causing serious problems with our heating and AC systems.
That’s a scenario we definitely wanted to avoid!
If you are doing the project yourself, pay the extra to rent the proper machines with attached dust baggers.
You can thank me later! 🙂
Top Coat Considerations
Once your floors are refinished, they’ll need proper care, especially in the first 24 hours.
I remember saying to our contractor, “I love how the floors look freshly sanded, can we just leave them as is?”
He laughed and said, “if you don’t put a top coat, they will be destroyed sooner rather than later.”
We opted for a quick-drying HD Traffic Bona product as our top coat that is not only super durable but the low fumed, quick drying aspect is very handy in winter when you need to close up the house sooner.
All in all, this was one of the best home improvement projects we could have done and I’m so happy with the floors a year later.
If you missed any of our flooring series, you can find all of the posts below.
More Of Our Red Oak Flooring Transformation
- Refinishing red oak floors to look like white oak (before and after) – you will be amazed at the before and after of our home going from dark stained floors to a light white oak look!
- We upgraded our floor vent covers to wood floor vents that match the new floor perfectly.
- The difference between red oak and white oak – both wood species have varying undertones with red oak having more pink pigment. See the grain differences and the hardness density.
- Best red oak stain colors – we tried several colors and clear sealers to find the perfect shade.
- Bona Nordic Seal – see how we got most of the red/pink undertone out of our red oak floors.
- 1 year later with our refinished red oak hardwood floors and how they are holding up.
- How to replace old metal floor vents with custom wood vent covers transforming our hardwood floors
Meet Jessica
What started as a hobby, Jessica’s blog now has millions of people visit yearly and while many of the projects and posts look and sound perfect, life hasn’t always been easy. Read Jessica’s story and how overcoming death, divorce and dementia was one of her biggest life lessons to date.
