Fast Fix for Hardwood Floors with Nails, Staples and Rust Stains

I’m a brand new homeowner, and we’re fixing up the place a bit before moving in next week.

We decided to pull up the carpet in three of the rooms in our new house (it smelled like dog despite looking clean), which revealed hardwood underneath. Since we’re moving in a few days, I wanted to address only structural/durability/safety issues at this point. It seems like the carpet had been installed with a LOT of staples, so there are many holes from those and from the nails holding tack strips. A few of these left some rust residue (or something dark).

I know the recommended method (from your show) is to sand and put polyurathane coating. However, the finish on the hardwood still seems in good shape and there doesn’t seem to be glue residue, so I’m inclined to just clean the floor well and use some wood filler on the bigger (nail) holes. Will that risk the integrity of the hardwood? We don’t care much about cosmetic issues at this point, so my main concern is that the holes (or something else) would harm the hardwood in a way that we couldn’t just sand and refinish later. Are there any other quick-fix tips for making a room look nice after pulling up carpet over hardwood? There are some carpet fibers under the bottom door sills that I’m going to scrape out, and we were planning to use 1/4 round trim against the baseboards.

Our Answer

It’s hard to do this job halfway, and it’d be a big mistake not to finish it now that the carpet’s pulled off and you’ve yet to move in. This is never going to be easy, so just be aware that if you wait to get it done, it will only be more disruptive.
These floors need to be sanded. The rust is only going to come up through proper sanding. This isn’t a DIY-friendly project, and especially if you opt to do it while you’re in the middle of moving, it’s an undertaking I recommend handing over to a pro.