LESLIE: Lavonne in Kansas needs some help with a flooring project. Tell us what you’re working on.
LAVONNE: Well, I have an old farm home; it was built in 1942.
TOM: Wow.
LAVONNE: And the wood is black walnut flooring. So over the years, it’s starting to show some real wear and I don’t know how to – what do I need to do to get it back to looking great?
TOM: Well, that’s a beautiful flooring. Well, it depends on how much wear you’re seeing. I mean obviously you have to sand it. The degree of sanding is what you have to decide. Now, you can sand it right down to raw wood with a floor sander, which is like a big belt sander, but we don’t recommend that you do that yourself because the equipment, even if you rent is, is a bit hard to handle.
If it just needs a light sanding, you can use a machine called a U-Sand machine. I think their website is U-Sand.com like the letter U, dash, Sand.com. And it’s a four-head, rotating disk sander that’s designed for floors; a lot easier for an amateur to handle because it’s very hard to do any damage with it and has a vacuum built in so it sort of sucks the dust off.
But one way or the other, you’ve got to sand the floor down and then you have to apply a couple of coats of polyurethane. I would use oil-based polyurethane and that’s all there is to it.
LAVONNE: Alright, what kind of – do I need to put anything on top of that as maintenance or just …?
TOM: Nope, nope.
LAVONNE: OK.
TOM: Once you put down a couple of coats of polyurethane, you’ll be good to go.
LAVONNE: Alright, sounds good.
TOM: Alright, good luck with that project.
LAVONNE: Thanks for your help.
TOM: Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT. You’re very welcome.
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