Re-surfacing Floors: Advice Please!

pezz77 · 07-22-2008, 09:44 AM

Ok. So I bought this house and it has pine floors. They weren't bad at all under the carpets I got rid off, but they seemed dull and rough in some spots (it seemed from a not so well applied poly or something, as it seemed bubbly too). So I wanted to just clean them up really well and do a poly coat, but a friend said I needed to do a "light" sanding with an orbital sander at least. After doing this, it was obvious that the sander was harder on some spots than others (from the raised parts I'm assuming), so I then did a light staining, just going quickly over the whole floor, focusing on the lighter spots and wiping throughly (I regret a little listening to my friend as it seems like maybe it would have been ok to just do a poly coat on top of what was there).
I did have a spot where we had to patch with new wood and the stain looks pretty close to the color of the floors, but around the patch, (where the original floor got sanded when we tried to flatten the patch) the lighter spots aren't taking the stain so well... it's like it's not absorbing or something, and it feels a little like laminate, but they're not. It does however look good when just stained, so I'm hoping the poly will make it look like that permanently.
Now to my question: I got minwax poly and it says on the can to just do one coat. Remember I only did a light sanding, so my floors aren't really all that rough. Is it ok to do only one coat like it says? Will the poly darken the floors a little bit or make them look like they're wet? I keep on reading that everyone does 2-3...
I'm planning on polying tonight and I have to move out of my other house by Saturday, so hopefully they'll be all dry and ok to put furniture on by then, it says 24 hours for foot traffic, 72 hours for furniture and 7 days for rug replacement on the can I have. I'll be leaving all the ceiling fans in the house on to help with the drying. I'll take any advice & tips before I poly. :o/ I'm attaching some pictures for reference after the light stain and one of the patch spot.

Bud Cline · 07-22-2008, 05:25 PM

Paragraphs!

Think about using paragraphs and spacing.

pezz77 · 07-22-2008, 05:38 PM

yes, that helps a lot. Thanks!

DUDE! · 07-22-2008, 08:08 PM

I can't tell pine from oak, but your floors look good from here, hopefully a floor person will step in and give you some direction. Seems odd only one coat, floors take a beating, you have the option of calling the 800 number on the can, helpful people there, they want it right for you. I don't think you are suppose to use a fan, dry top, wet bottom kinda thing. Its tough enough to do the floors without having a time factor thrown in. Sorry I couldn't be more of a help to you.