Polishing floors - alternatives

Hi Everyone,

My reno is almost ready for the floor to be sanded and polished. I'm running out of time to do it myself and will be looking to have a pro come in and sand/polish the floors.

My question is - are there any cheaper alternatives to provide a good looking finish? I'm looking at painting in a colour that will look great and wear well.

Thanks

Andrew L said:

My question is - are there any cheaper alternatives to provide a good looking finish? I'm looking at painting in a colour that will look great and wear well.

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In a word...No. Sand it and do the clear epoxy thing. This will be critical for a good "wow' factor.
Floors are everywhere - don't screw it up by scrimping here.

Living in Sydney, you are lucky in that the floor sanding market is very very competitive.

Contact a company called Alex Lind at Bexley, they are floor industry suppliers. Ask for Clem - he would have many contacts to fit your needs. They would also have some ideas for finishes. Tell him Mick from Queanbeyan sent you!

My advice for flooring, is to always get in a pro. Even for the best DYI-er, the quality of the hire machines is such that it makes it very difficult to get a perfect finish.

When you say painting are you referring to the floor? And a clear finish or an actual paint - like a sea side cottage sort of look?

Cheers

Propertunity said:

In a word...No. Sand it and do the clear epoxy thing. This will be critical for a good "wow' factor.
Floors are everywhere - don't screw it up by scrimping here.

Click to expand...

Thanks, Definately trying not to be a tight **** but these guys charge more than my dads heart specialist.........

namtrak said:

Living in Sydney, you are lucky in that the floor sanding market is very very competitive.

Contact a company called Alex Lind at Bexley, they are floor industry suppliers. Ask for Clem - he would have many contacts to fit your needs. They would also have some ideas for finishes. Tell him Mick from Queanbeyan sent you!

My advice for flooring, is to always get in a pro. Even for the best DYI-er, the quality of the hire machines is such that it makes it very difficult to get a perfect finish.

When you say painting are you referring to the floor? And a clear finish or an actual paint - like a sea side cottage sort of look?

Cheers

Click to expand...

Thanks Mick, I will do. I was looking to paint in that style just second guessing as I know the polished floors look so good.

Some finishes are darker than others.

Working with jarrah floors, how does one get a lighter, reddish rather than black) finish?

I've paid up to $3k to do an average sized 3br house......what are the best deals
some of you others have obtained?

Seems to be about $500 for an average room. I have *one* whole room of baltic here in very average condition (it had a metre long chunk taken out of one board we filled in, and a large burn mark that was about 1/2 cm deep we also filled in) and the floor guy still wanted to polish it up, we just got him to grind down the cupping on the boards. The rest of the house is particleboard - we got the entire house carpeted.

I've seen people do a 'wash' coat over the floor or paint the floor with paving paint but that is such a cheap and nasty, don't do it.

If you're that much of a broke tighta$$ why not just get someone in to slap down the cheapest carpet or vinyl or laminate (which you can DIY) you can lay your hands on and then get it *properly* sanded and finished in a break between the next set of tenants? At least then you won't potentially be wrecking the floor with paint. Paint will get into the imperfections in the floor and if you get it polished later you'll see it, depending on the colour.

I agree that you should not "paint" the floor because you may never get it out of the deeper cracks.

However, when we bought one IP, we didn't have enough money to pay for the floor to be sanded. It had been "japanned" long ago, that dark (almost black) stain around the edges.

To get it looking better for renting, and until we could afford to have it sanded professionally, we painted on estapol with a dark stain added. We got the right estapol (not sure actually whether it was estapol?) from a hardware store, added the tint, and painted the floor.

It looked much better than it had before we did it and made it much more "rentable" for very little cost.

A few years later when we finally had it done, the sander did say that he was using more paper than usual as the estapol was clogging up the sanding sheets. I think from memory we paid an extra $250 or so for the extra sheets.

Perhaps you could look at that, but bear in mind the sander down the track may not take on the job or will probably charge extra for the extra sheets he will use.

DO NOT PAINT THE FLOORS!!!!! when we bought our house the floors had been painted with cream paving paint - it was less than a day before they looked hideous.. moving the furniture caused scratches to the paint and they were almost imposible to clean! not to mention when we did sand them back it was a nighmare to get the paint off them...

now we have a hardwearing clearcoat on them which has been fantastic... no scratches or marks and super easy to clean... and they look fantastic!

What sort of timber is the floor?

If it is a decent quality type of timber - then a clear finish by a professional - when you can afford it.

If it is Radiata Pine, then maybe look at painting. But there isnt any real cost saving. To do it properly, you should still get the floor professionally sanded, then you can coat with a Dulux interior paint (and sealer), and then finish it with a Hardwax finish or something similar.

If you dont finish the floor with the normal type of floor finishes (over the paint) then you end up with the problems Alabex is referring to.

You could possibly just leave the floors as are, and wait until you are cashed up.

As for costs.

In Sydney you are looking at $25 to $40 per sqm (and cheaper for some fly by nighters) - like I said contact Clem at Alex Lind and he will get you sorted.

Don't paint the floors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We are in Sydney and recently we had 2 large rooms with cypress pine floorboards, sanded and polished. Also an additional long hallway was laid with matching floorboards (previously it was carpet).

We got 3 quotes. 2 for ~$2800-$3000 and one for $1800. Needless to say we went with the cheaper one. The quality of this guy's work was exceptional. PM me if you want his details. The agent who sold our house asked for his details because he was amazed by the difference the floors made to the house. Best of all it only cost us $1.8k but probably added $5k of value to the house.

I got a quote the other day for a large kitchen dining area and and laundry area was $600 it sounded pretty reasonable to me.

5 years ago we got the rest ofthe house done 3 bedrooms hall and lounge with a few boards replaced for $1300. This russian guy in melbourne did it he looked like Michael Bolton when he had the long blond hair was really loud. Anyway did a great job I cant find his number and cant rememebr his name so if anyone in Melbourne knows a Blonde loud russian floor polisher that fits the description can you pm me.