Hardwood Floor Refinishing?

[Leslie]

Our new house has terrible carpeting. It's in ok shape, 10 years old. But it's dark green in the living spaces and cream in the bedrooms. And it's really not my style. Plus the prior owners have two dogs and so I think that the carpets smell like dogs. They told us that there are hardwood floors underneath the carpets. We can see them in the closets because there is no carpet there.

Once we get the keys on the March 10th, we are getting in there and ripping out the carpet. Then we can assess the condition of the floors. We want to have this done professionally, but I think it's going to cost about $4K for 1400 square feet. So I think we might have to refinish them ourselves.

1. Has anyone paid a professional to refinish their floors? How did it turn out? How much did it cost you? Are you glad you hired a professional?

2. Has anyone refinished their floors themselves? How did it turn out? How much did it cost you? Are you glad you did it yourself?

Thanks!

[Karri]

we had ours done. i cant remember how much it was per sq ft, or how big the space is, but we had the living, dining & sun room done. it cost us $900 total and it turned out GORGEOUS. they did it in two days flat, which was great b/c we had to leave the house for the two days.
we have one room left to do (bedroom) and b/c it isnt a main room, we are going to do it ourselves. we didnt do the main stuff ourselves b/c of how quickly we needed it done and b/c of horror stories of sanders gone wild :lol:

[SarahK]

I haven't done this, but have you ever seen the show "Weekend Warriors" on HGTV? There is an episode on there where a woman and her female friend refinish the wood parquet floor in her living room and it looks great when they finish! I think they rented the sander from Home Depot or some place like that. The tough part seemed to be figuring out how to correctly use the big sander--for awhile they had it going in circles and it was pretty out of control.

[Karri]

The one positive about going professional is you can control the amt. of dust. We looked for someone who used a machine that helped minimize it. Even with that and putting up plastic all over the house, we STILL had to clean out the cabinets and whatnot. PITA!