DIY: Buffing Floors or Refinish Floors?

Matt and I knew as soon as we bought the house that we were going to refinish the floors, but after talking to some friends we decided to buff off the top layer of polyurethane instead. This saved us time and lots of energy.

Why buff?
Often times people simply refinish their floors [strip them down to the bare wood] to get them looking shiny and new. We were just going to jump on that bandwagon too, because we wanted shiny new floors. However, you can get shiny new floors [if you don’t have any major stains or scratches] by simply buffing off the top coat of polyurethane.



The majority of the reasons floors look dingy is exactly that-they are dingy and the polyurethane is no longer shining like it did when it was first applied.

Typically to refinish hardwood floors you use four different types of sandpaper: 60, 80, 100, and then finally 120 to get the floor to the smooth finish you want to apply polyurethane.

So rather than sanding the floor over and over again with different grade sandpaper you simply take off the stop coat with maroon buffer pads.

Not only does this save time and energy, but it also increased the longevity of your floor. You can only refinish hardwood floors so many times because you thin the boards each time you go down to the bare wood.

Happy Buffing!