I have a small older house (1940's) that I'm almost finished remodeling. I need to take up the old carpet and under this existing carpet are the original wood floors. Unfortunately, I think they are Fir (soft wood). What would you all do? Sand and finish the floors and hope they hold up well or go over the top with a laminate instead?

I had one younger (30y/o) handyman tell me that those old soft wood floors are so old that they are now practically a hard wood. Not sure I buy that, but I would love to hear your suggestions. Expediency and cost are important, but with all I've put into this I want it to look good

Wow, that's awesome, JB! I've seen some real estate agents light up when they pull up carpet and find hardwood underneath. If your place is in a nice area, I think that you can command a top price for rent. Many millenials and people who like architecture absolutely love vintage hardwood floors, and if they're part of your tenant pool, you could pitch the floors in your ad.

I deliberately put pine floors into my rentals. They look good, the tenants love them, and scratches just make them look more rustic. There has been surprisingly little damage.

I'm face nailing, so repairs are super easy, although I've never needed to repair.

Are you remodeling to sell or to rent?

Did you ever notice how hard it is to drill into old joists? Yep, wood gets harder with age. So, the young handyman is correct, they will wear better than a new soft wood.

My suggestion is give them a ‘quick and dirty’ refinishing. That’s just my term for it, but, I got the idea from Family Handyman magazine. So, instead of the full-on perfect refinishing, you, test some poly in an out of the way spot, like a closet. See if the poly goes down nicely, doesn’t bubble up. If all goes well on that spot, then clean all the floors well, use some bleach on the dark spots, lightly sand in areas where the surface is still reall glossy, or is rough, but not the full sanding. The point isn’t to sand to bare wood, just even rough spots, basically. Wipe up the dust, then wipe on the poly. Two coats. My husband uses oil-base poly when he helped me on some rentals, but water based when doing our own floors.

So far so good on the rentals, and in out own homes. By not doing the deep sanding, not removing the wood, the depth of the floors isn’t reduced. This doesn’t give a perfect floor, but does give a nice floor. And, I have had tenants say they love that the floors look good, but not so perfect that they are afraid of damaging them. I have had some busy households, and this has held up well. My own house our kids’ bedrooms are still in great shape, though daughter got a little glitter and nail polish on hers during her teen years.

I have always heard floors can only get a full refinishing (to perfection) about 3 times, then the sander would hit nails. With the ‘quick’ method, if you ever want to sell the house, you could have a full refinish that buyers might want done. But, as long as it’s a rental, you keep all of the wood depth . Just give tenants a new coat of poly between tenants.

JB,

I’d go with a good cleaning, try some bleach or Xylol on the moisture stains. YouTube it.

If their is no varnish coat you can hide stains by using a med to dark wood stain. Then sealer, then poly.

Carpet is OUT. Wood floors are IN. Rustic wood is double IN!

We use satin finish. Just did this to some pine underlayment floors and they look FA-BULOUS!

I am a contractor. When I find old hardwood flooring under carpet I conduct several tests.

Test #1: How thick is the wooden material. Many of the old floors were only 1/2 an inch thick -- tongue and groove (meaning only 1/3 of the wood is the usable surface walked on). I drill two holes in the flooring ( under the base boards where the true original thickness -- and somewhere lick in a closet that could be filled in later). I use a depth gauge and take these measurements.

Using simple math I can determine how much "meat" is left and how many sanding I can do. If the wood only has one sanding left, I wouldn't refinish the flooring. All of that money for one tenant.

If there are 2,3 or more sanding's left, then I would consider refinishing. But only after test #2.

TEST #2. Is the flooring sealer or stain contain "lead". Take samples to a lab for testing. You can cut out 1 small piece of flooring. If there is lead, it is too dangerous to play around with it!

Soft wood that is 50 or more will be hard.

I would clean it good with a scrubber pad then see if i can get sealer to stick. Try a closet first. If it will stick, out down 3 coats of flooring poly and call it good. They may look distressed, and that is fine.