Should I sand and varnish / wax wooden floor?

[JK1983]

Hi all,

Looking for some advice about what the best thing is to do with our wooden floor.

We're keen to maintain the aged / worn charachter that the floor currently has (see pics). we're not fussed that there's some variation in colour and can live with most of the marks & blemishes. Appreciate this might not be to everyone's taste but we're aa littl worried that if we sand it and varish or wax it then it'll just look like a new floor and loose all charachter.

Unfortunately there's a criss cross pattern on the floor where the previous owners had carpet tiles for the best part of 40yrs.

Any thoughts? Can we maintain the a aged / worn look with sanding and varnishing or could we just clean it up and leave it? Is there any downside to not sanding and varnishing / waxing?

Cheers in advance

James

 

[KenGMac]

JK1983, good evening.

You can sand the flooring in your posted images.

The old imprints from the carpet tiles will [hopefully] sand out.

The area in the image 424 appears to be plaster or similar may be a wee bit more difficult to remove?

In some ways, you are lucky in that there is no old "Shellac" or very dark brown stain, that was very popular with the Georgians and Victorians, back in the day.

I have sanded various floors in my home, 1823 redwood similar to yours, But? i hired a bit of kit that was supposed to sand right up to the skirting, the kit that was supposed to sand to the skirting, failed badly, I was left with a dark brown band around the Skirting in the hall, not acceptable [at least to me?]

I eventually bit the bullet and got a local [to me] specialist who has made a really good job of sanding, buffing, and applying a good top coat, looks fine to me.

As an aside, if after you have sanded the floor, and you are not entirely happy withe the finish, you can use a coloured coating to in effect "mask" the colour imperfections in the sanded boards.

One item sometimes overlooked is the need to "Buff up" the sanded flooring, the Specialist I used had a large floor buffer immediately prior to application of the coating material.

Ken

 

[foxhole]

Sand and coat with danish oil, will seal while having little effect on colour.

 

[ellal]

After sanding a similar floor I've used Osmo polyx oil which gives a natural look, and has a hard finish.