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I'm busy renovating an old farm house and one of the rooms have wood floors in it.

In my opinion, the floors are still in great condition because it had two layers of other stuff on top of it for 50+ years.

I have no idea what kind of wood it is and have zero experience in flooring, but I would like to know what I can do to make sure these wooden floors last another 100 years into the future.

If someone could give me steps or instructions based on my photos, that would be fantastic 🙏🏻

I'm afraid of damaging or ruining it.

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  • Check the thickness of the wood to make sure it has enough to be sanded for refinishing. The floor sanders take about a 1/16 inch or more each time it is refinish. The people who do refinishing will make that floor look new. Commented 17 hours ago
  • Step 1: clean off the dirt so you can see what you actually have. Plain water will do, but don't soak it—mop it, then wipe off the mud. Commented 17 hours ago
  • @Huesmann Okay thanks. I actually wasn't sure if I am allowed to wash it with water so I haven't done that yet. Like I said, I didn't want to damage it further. Commented 17 hours ago
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    If you wash it, where the wood is now bare will swell a little but it'll all get sanded off. It's fine. If you don't wash it, where the wood is really dirty or gummy, you'll burn through sandpaper pretty fast ... but you'll get there. It's fine. Go watch some intros on youtube, then come back here with questions specific to your floor. Which, I think, there really aren't any. Get to work! :) Commented 17 hours ago
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    You can wash hardwood flooring as long as you don't let the water soak it. Think damp rag/mop, rather than spraying with a hose. Commented 12 hours ago

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I see more un-vacuumed dirt than I do wear and tear. Get in there and sweep/vacuum (or "sweep/vacuum better than that.")

The finish is worn off in some spots, but the wood is not deeply damaged.

This lightly worn, I'd give a random orbit sander (preferably hooked to a HEPA-filtered shop-vacuum) not very coarse (80 or 100 grit - 60 at the most) a try rather than the full-on "floor sander 36 grit rip off a lot of wood" approach, unless there is deeper damage I'm missing amid the dirt.

That's partly to conserve floor thickness by removing less wood, partly because big floor sanders are a noisy, dusty, loud pain to use and present the opportunity to damage the floor through inexperience while fighting a big, heavy, powerful tool while trying to improve it.

I use them when appropriate, but I don't like them much. They can be faster, but there's additional time going to and from the rental location as well, and the room shown is pretty small.

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    I agree with this answer. For antique wood floors, drum sanders do more harm than good. I've had really good results using the prescribed approach of an orbital sander, kneepads, and lots of time. I would only try adding a bit of oil-based tint to the poly and use a brush to apply it, going board by board. The resulting finish makes the imperfections part of the charm. Commented 16 hours ago
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I would be renting a floor sander and sand the entire floor since there is a lot of wear and tear on it. Then, after vacuuming to remove all the dust, check your local stores for heavy duty polyurethane coatings. Follow directions as to how many coats to add and drying times between coats. Oil based coating, in my experiences, are thicker and hold up better and require fewer coats than water based coatings.

Post us back in 100 years and let us know how it turned out.

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If you are trying to protect your floors for the next 100 years, I recommend making sure you have a good roof on the house. Water will be your biggest threat over the years and an unnoticed leak can go unseen between the floor and the subfloor for a long time.

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    Luckily it rains almost never here. So water is not an issue at all. Commented 8 hours ago

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