Home Sanding & refinishing
Down to bare wood, then built back up.
Sanding and refinishing resets a hardwood floor completely — damage, color, sheen, all of it. It's the biggest of the three jobs, and the one where the calendar matters as much as the craftsmanship.
HAZA project
What it is
The only job that removes damage instead of covering it.
Sanding takes off the old finish and a thin layer of the wood, which is what actually removes scratches, stains and old color. Then the floor is built back up: stain if you want it, then coats of finish, each one dry before the next. A floor can only take so many of these in its life, so the first question is always whether yours has another one left.
Plan around the drying, not the sanding. The sanding is a couple of days. The cure is what decides when your furniture and rugs come back.
This is the right call when
- Scratches and dents you can feel with a fingernail
- Grey, black or water-stained boards
- Finish flaking, peeling or worn through to bare wood
- You want a different color or sheen
- Boards were repaired or replaced and need blending
Look somewhere else when
- The finish is only dull and intact — a recoat costs less
- The floor has been sanded down to its limit already
- Engineered wood with a wear layer too thin to sand — assessed case by case
The sequence
The refinishing sequence.
Each stage has to be dry and right before the next one starts. That's the whole discipline of the job.
Assess sanding suitability
Board thickness, prior refinishes, nail depth, cupping and any engineered wear layer. Some floors can only be sanded once more, and you should know that first.
Sand and edge
Progressive grits across the field, plus edges and corners the drum can't reach. Skipped grits are why floors show swirl under a finish.
Decide the finish together
Stain color and sheen chosen with samples on your wood, in your light — not from a chart. Sheen changes how much wear and dust shows.
Coat, dry, repeat
Coats applied in sequence with full dry time between. Rushing this is what causes a finish to fail in the traffic paths.
Cure and hand back
Walk-on, furniture and rug dates confirmed in writing. Rugs go down last — a finish that's dry is not yet cured.
What moves the price
What changes a refinishing number.
This is the job with the widest range, because the floor's condition and the finish choice both swing it.
Square footage and layout
Open floors sand efficiently. Closets, stairs and tight rooms mean hand work.
Condition of the wood
Grey boards, water damage, cupping and repairs all add work before finishing can start.
Stain or natural
Adding a stain step adds labor and dry time, and custom color matching adds more.
Finish product and coats
The product and coat count change both the price and how long you're out of the rooms.
Stairs and trim
Stairs are priced separately for good reason — they're almost entirely hand work.
Occupancy and schedule
Living in the house during a refinish, and how hard your date is, both affect the plan and the price.
Questions
Refinishing questions.
Can every hardwood floor be sanded?
No. Board thickness, previous refinishes and engineered construction all limit it. Suitability is assessed before the work is quoted.
How long will my floors be out of use?
Longer than most people expect — days, driven by cure times between coats rather than by sanding. The full schedule is confirmed before we start.
Can I change the color?
Yes, within what your species and the age of the wood will accept. Stain and sheen are decided together on samples of your actual floor.
Would a buff and recoat be enough instead?
If your existing finish is still sound, quite possibly — and it costs less. See buff and recoat.
Is it dusty?
Sanding makes dust. It gets contained and cleaned rather than promised away — be suspicious of anyone claiming a genuinely dustless floor sanding.
Next step
Send a photo.
Get a real number.
Two or three pictures of the floor, the rough square footage, and the room it's in. That's enough to tell you what the job actually involves before anyone quotes it.