We just moved into our new (actually old -- 1939) house. We have lots of hardwoods -- which I love -- but the finish is very worn and the floors are quite dusty (judging by the dirty little feet I'm seeing in the bathtub every night). Any way to get them really clean without totally destroying the wood? We plan to get them refinished at some point in the not-too-distant future, but I know they probably shouldn't get really wet before that happens.

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I use Lipton tea. The tanic acid (?) in the tea is really good for the wood. It makes it shine. I learned this watching the Queen of Clean on HGTV. Unfortunately we always have dirty little feet in our tub though. Of course, I'm not the worlds most consistant mopper. I'm always leary of getting water on the floors as well, because mine aren't sealed either. One day we will either refinish them, or put carpet over them. Good luck!

Yes, if they are unsealed you probably shouldn't mop too much. My kitchen has parts that are exposed (the lino. is torn up) that are unfinished and I don't mopt that part often, but it is dirty, your socks turn brown if you are on it.

My other floors are old too and have finish on them and I mop my living room floor every day but I don't think I am supposed to ;) We had that one refinished 4 years ago and it already has tons of scratches (some BIG ones) and is not very shiny anymore. I will try the tea I think...

We refinished the bedroom floors by ourselves and it was hard work and the finish did not come out that great, but good enough. It only costed like $100 to rent the sander and $20 or so for the can of varnish and brushes, compared to $500 to have the tiny living room done professionally.

Thanks for your help! Looks like I will just have to deal with them being a little dirty for awhile. I am using a Swiffer a couple of times a day (mostly for the dog hair!) and used a little Murphy's Oil Soap with a BARELY wet sponge mop the other day. It helped but some spots look a little dull, so I probably shouldn't do that very often. Ordinarily the dust probably wouldn't bother me much -- I think my 3rd trimester "nesting" is kicking in big time. It's still much better than wall to wall carpeting. We pulled out carpet in our first house and were DISGUSTED by what we found underneath. The carpets were in great shape and looked very clean (and were vacuumed frequently), and there was still tons of this super fine sand that had filtered down through the carpet and pad especially in the high traffic areas. With the wood, at least you know you are getting it pretty clean.

I'm glad to see that someone else has tried the refinishing themselves with at least some success. We were just talking today about trying it ourselves, too.

I think our floors would have looked better if we had added another coat of varnish, but we just wanted to be done so we only did the two coats. It was very hard to live with all of the bedroom furn. in the l/r and kitchen (tiny house) so we wanted to move it back ASAP.

If you do the sanding by yourselves, just make sure not to leave the sander in one place too long- keep it moving! If you don't, you'll end up with big deep grooves in the floor, ask me how I know :o

I use a solution of vinegar and water on my floor (try to keep the mop damp, not wet). Because vinegar is not the most beautiful scent, I usually add a little peppermint. I mix up this solution and keep it in a spray bottle; then I just shpritz where it is needed and wipe with clean, damp mop. I hope that this helps!

Dh refinished our hardwood floors, and boy it was hard work. I was pregnant at the time, so I couldn't help so much.

He says that if he had to do it again, he would not have rented the drum sander and would have gotten the flat, square vibrating sander instead, because it's easier to manage and less likely to put grooves in the floor.

We did 3 coats of polyurethane, and it looks nice. Unfortunately, dh "forgot" to get the dust up out of the corners of the inside of a few of the closets, so now I have polyurethane dust gunk in the closets. You can't see it, so I guess it's as good as not there.

Here's what he did:
Sanded with coarse sandpaper,
then with medium and then
with fine.
He used the shop vac to vacuum inbetween each sanding. Seal anything you don't want to get dusty with plastic and masking tape. Go ahead and invest in the BIG $20.00 roll of painter's plastic at Home Depot, I promise you'll use it.

After the 3 sandings, he wiped the floors with a tack cloth and mineral spirits, then he did a coat of poly, let it dry then sanded, then repeat for a second coat, sand, then final coat of poly.

This all took about 3 days with 2 helpers (more like 1.5, my BIL is marginally helpful).

Things we learned:

When applying the poly to old, dry floors, thin the poly for the first coat with mineral spirts so that it soaks in easily. The thicker, undiluted poly got air bubbles that didn't break and had to be sanded down.

Use a lambswool pad on a stick for applying the poly, not a roller. Rollers will leave bubbles.

It was so much cheaper to do it ourselves, just very labor intensive. Hope that helps.

~Shelly

Thanks for your suggestions about floor refinishing! We are usually very big do-it-yourselfers, and it is very tempting to try this since I know it would probably cost us around $2000 to hire somebody. I have to travel to Texas for about a week in December for my sister's wedding -- dh won't be coming for the whole trip, maybe I can talk him into doing this while I'm gone as my x-mas gift! I'm sure it would be A LOT easier to manage without 3 kids underfoot!