Interior design decisions can affect the mood of you and your family, being either a great success or a huge, annoying flop.  Whether you are planning to get your floors renovated by a professional floor sanding company, or purely brainstorming for interior design ideas, it is important at the beginning of a re-design to consider colours.

Colour experts know that each colour brings with it a special feel and energy to the room you put it in.  This is very true for the colour red, which makes a bold statement even when in small amounts depending on the layout of a room.  When matched with woodwork, such as floors which have been recently sanded and stained, it makes a dramatic impact.

Red can be exotic, warm and dramatic.  It can also be too much in heavy doses and this will depend on a variety of factors, such as the tone of red, the room it is in and what others colours are there to set it off.   Used in smaller amounts red can work extremely well to make a room feel cosy.   It is a colour that affects some people negatively it seems, as it does hold an element of aggression for some.

The colour can stimulate passions and give energy also.  Red is thought to promote feelings of determination and courage.  It is an active colour, which can make people feel more assertive, courageous and passionate.

Unless used in small doses it is best used in an area or room where there will be activity.  Red does not sit well in areas of a home which are for peace and relaxation.   So it is a great colour for any activity area, but even so it is best to be careful about the shade so the room does not feel smaller or oppressive.

Each colour has a complementary colour, which can be seen on a colour wheel.  It is the colour which sits opposite it.  Red’s complementary colour is blue.  This combination is well balanced and very effective, so therefore a safe choice.  Complementary colours distributed cleverly in a room are extremely stylish.  It is amazing what blue can do sitting beside red.

You could probably think of more enjoyable activities than floor sanding, but there are some very good reasons to choose wood over carpet for your home. If you think about it, floor sanding suddenly isn’t such a chore any longer, but a means to a fantastic end.

Wood Is Healthy and Beautiful

In Chinese philosophy, there are five elements: Wood; water; earth; fire and metal. These elements are used in different ways. For example, doctors in China look at the way these elements are present in a client and the way they interact with eachother. By adjusting diet and habits, some elements are strengthened and others reduced, with the goal of preventing or curing illness.

This is a significant point in the way Chinese culture sees the human being. All aspects that make up a person should be in harmony and this can be achieved by paying attention to everything we eat and do, and also to the things that surround us.

Is Your Home Harmonious?

In Feng Shui, the Chinese philosophy that deals with how to arrange your house, all elements should be present for a home to be a place that is healthy and pleasant to live in.

As such, it is a good idea to get rid of your carpet, get down to some floor sanding and bring that old wooden floor to life again.

And Healthier?

Not only is a beautiful wooden floor easy to clean and a pleasure to see, it is also a much healthier environment for you and your children. Carpets area a breeding ground for dust mites and other parasites which not even a vacuum cleaner will remove. And those little critters can cause strong allergic reactions, and even worse, prolonged exposure can end up causing allergy.

And don’t think that you need a brand new oak floor to make your house harmonious and beautiful. Very often simple pine planks reveal beautiful grain and appeal after some careful floor sanding and a few layers of varnish.

In fact, old floors often look much better for the wear and tear of time. Give it a try: Just lift a corner of your carpet, and sand the wood underneath. Start with 60 or 80 grit, move onto 180 grit, and finish with 240 grit. Remove the dust and see for yourself if your floor would add beauty to your house.

Of course you will have to use resin to fill holes, knots, and cracks, and you’ll be spending some time sanding the floor, but you could just as easily hire a company to come and do dustless floor sanding for you. Either way, your home will be more harmonious and beautiful.

While there is certainly comfort and visual appeal to a nice wall-to-wall carpet for some people, there are some very good reasons to opt for wooden floors instead.

Floor Sanding-Wood Floors Are Healthier – For You And For The World

I’ll start by saying that deforestation is a worldwide problem. Fortunately, governments are now taking action to reduce this. There’s simply no excuse for stripping away the lungs of the world. But we don’t have to ransack our planet in order to have a beautiful wooden floor. Wooden floors can be recycled and those are often even more beautiful than those made of new wood.

It’ll take some floor sanding to bring out the grain, but after that you can be satisfied that you’re actually doing the world a favour.

Why?

Why Floor Sanding Does The Environment A Favour

Producing vinyl flooring and woolen or synthetic carpets is a very damaging process for the environment. Even a woolen carpet will almost in all cases have synthetic backing, not to mention the chemical dyes and the damage those do to the environment.

By contrast, responsible ways of wood cultivation actually benefit our ecosystem.

Another Reason Wooden Floors Are a Better Option? Floor Sanding For Your Health!

Carpets are breeding grounds for dust mites, fleas, and a host of other parasites. Dust mites are especially nasty, since they very easily cause allergic reactions. “Ah, but I’m not allergic”, you might say. Good. I hope it stays that way. However, research has shown that prolonged exposure to allergens can cause a person to develop an allergy to that allergen.

And believe me, if you have carpets at home, you are exposed to a lot more allergens than you might think.

Speaking of Dust…

By now, I hope you’re ready to go and choose a wood floor over carpet. There’s something that I’d like to stress though, which has to do with floor sanding. Whether your floor is made of new wood or re-used, it will have to be sanded.

You can hire a company to do it for you, or you could rent or purchase a machine and do it yourself. Either way, make sure you choose the dustless floor sanding option.

Not only is airborne wood dust a health hazard forcing you to wear a protective mask, it’s also a terrible nuisance to find that the whole room (or indeed, even the entire house) has been exposed and left with a smooth layer of dust. You could end up finding traces for months. So when starting sanding you floor, do please make sure you hire a machine fit for dustless floor sanding. It’s about your health, after all.

Let’s recap quickly on some of the basics of floor sanding before moving onto these helpful tips for wood floor varnishing.  Here’s a simple checklist for floor sanding, however if you wish to read more in depth information click on floor sanding tips.

1. Work from coarse grain down to fine. After each pass over the floor switch to a finer grain.
2. When using a machine for floor sanding, make sure you keep it moving because if you let it sit still in one area, you’ll create a dent in the wood.
3. When sanding parts by hand, for example in corners or around heating pipes, only move along with the grain. If you move your sanding paper cross-grain you’ll create ugly scratches, which are almost impossible to remove.
4. The final step to floor sanding is what painters call the most important step in painting: removing dust. Make sure the floor is perfectly dustfree. First use a vacuum cleaner, then sweep the entire surface with a static cling cloth.

Now you’re ready for the wood floor varnishing.

In the past, varnishing a floor was quite a chore. Two, three or four layers long, you’d be standing in a room where the entire floor was exhaling solvents at you. Not very pleasant.

Not any longer.

Nowadays, the best varnishes are water-based. That means no solvents, no smell lingering for days, and the best? Done in a day.

What You Must Know Before Using Water-Based Varnish

The high-grade water-based varnishes of today dry within hours, literally. Most of the times, a layer will be dry to the touch in 30 minutes and can take light load after four hours. A second layer of varnish can be applied after two hours (Always check the container of your varnish for specific information about drying times!)

That means that you can paint an entire floor three times in one day, and the next day you can live in the room as normal.

It also means that you shouldn’t let the edges of a fresh patch of paint dry before extending the patch since you will see the edges of the first patch if it gets a chance to dry up. So don’t go around the room painting all the corners and under the radiators and then move on to varnish the large surfaces. Work across the floor in blocks.

Avoid direct sunlight while you’re painting since this will speed up drying time even more and cause the same ugly edges I described above.

After the first layer dries, you will notice that the fibres of the wood have raised and hardened, making the surface feel very rough. This is normal and happens because of the water in the varnish. Just wait until the layer is dry enough to sand down and use a fine grain sandpaper to smoothen the surface. Remove dust and proceed to apply layer 2.

Floor Sanding-The Staining Challenge

To achieve the best results when using a floor sanding company or doing the job yourself, it is vital to have some understanding about staining.  Some floor sanding professionals do advise that this work should not be done by novices.  Staining a newly sanded wood floor is a challenging process and should ideally be undertaken by two people working together continuously.  It needs be a continuous process without taking any breaks to achieve the best results.

Floor Sanding-Choosing The Right Colour Stain

The first step to a successful staining is to choose the right colour for your desired result.  This may seem pretty straightforward but actually it is not.  The colour of the boards after floor sanding needs to be mixed with whatever colour stain you choose and even someone with a keen eye may not find it easy to imagine the exact result of this mix.  There are factors such as the age of the boards, what age they were when the tree was felled and which country they were originally from which influence the colour of the boards.

One way to tackle this is to buy a small piece of wood which is the same colour as the boards and put stain on this; it may not give exactly the same result as the finished job but it can help you make the right decision.  Also you can consider mixing stains to achieve the outcome you want.  If you do go this route, make sure that you choose either water based or spirit based and do not mix them together.

Floor Sanding-How To Stain

Once the stain or stains have been chosen the floor needs to have been sanded properly so that it ends up being smooth and silky.  It is best to mask skirting boards, pipes and anything else that needs masking.  Before staining you will need to have plenty of rags, rubber gloves, a roller tray, black bags and a one inch brush.  Then apply the stain with a rag focusing on two to three boards at a time.  You need to work quite quickly and be generous with the amount of stain you apply.

The reason this job takes two people is because one is there to do the staining and the other is behind them to wipe off the excess.  The brush is to use on the skirting boards and any areas that need more precision.  The stain goes into the roller tray which is on top of a black bag as you work.  At the beginning you need to plan where you will start and how you will progress to keep the work smooth and continuous.

Once the staining part of the floor sanding project is finished you should leave the floor over night before varnishing.

Have you been around to a friend’s or relation’s house and seen how amazing their wooden floor looks after they got a floor sanding job done?  And we’re talking about the same floor that was a bit of an eyesore before.  It is incredible the difference a quality floor sanding job can make to a floor and the overall look of a room.  Some people choose to take the DIY route whereas others hand it over to the experts.  Whichever way you’re thinking of going these easy to follow tips will ensure you get the best result.

Floor Sanding Tips-Knowing About The Machinery

A bit like cutting grass, you will need two different sanders to complete the floor sanding job.  One is for the main areas and the other for around the edges.

Don’t be tempted to cut costs by hiring a machine that is not top of the range, as more than likely if you do you will end up with dust everywhere. The top of the range floor sanding machines have an integral dust collection unit so are virtually dust free.

As you will need to change sandpaper frequently opt for a belt type sander rather than the drum roller type, as these are easier to manage.  If you are not going DIY make sure you ask prospective floor sanding companies about their machinery, products and processes.

If going the DIY route be aware that one of the most common mistakes is to stay too long in one place with the machine, be fluid when using the sanding machine.

Floor Sanding Tips-Types Of Wood Which Need Special Consideration

Pine gives the appearance of being deceptively flat which means that without the correct equipment you will end up with a dip in the middle of each floor board.

Parquet will require a special sander machine.

Before Floor Sanding

Make sure you have disposable face masks.  Check for pieces of floor boards which have nail heads sticking up as these need to be punched down to about 1/8 of an inch below the floor boards.  This can be done using a nail punch.  If this is not done properly the sandpaper will get torn.

Any gaps need to be filled before starting also which can be done with a resin filer mixed with wood dust.

There are a minimum of 4 types of sandpaper necessary for the job, and some floor sanding professionals may use up to 7.  The 4 are:

• 24 grit: very coarse sandpaper
• 40 grit: medium sandpaper
• 80 grit: medium- fine sandpaper
• 120 grit: fine sandpaper

When Sanding

Using the 24 grit sandpaper first, get the feel for the machine, remembering that the last thing you want to do is hang around in one spot for too long.  Always sand with the grain and not against it.  Move fluidly around the floor, always in the direction of the grain.  Turning at edges of the room should be done calmly, keeping the movement continuous.

When you see that you are down to the new wood, then you will want to use the edge sander now for skirting boards and other parts that you couldn’t reach with the main machine.

Change and repeat the process now with the 40 grit, 80 grit, and then again with the 120 grit.  Then you need to hoover the floor completely and leave for a few hours, before repeating floor sanding.