Specialist Wooden Floor Restoration in Essex

At Barfords, we have dedicated a lifetime to our craft in quality wooden floor restoration and our craftsmen take great pride in restoring damaged wood flooring, doors, panelling, and furniture to best showcase its natural character and charm. We take great pride in restoring wood to its former glory and use proven techniques and the finest quality materials, to faithfully unveil their unique characteristics and features. If you’ve been wondering how to restore a wooden floor yourself, then look no further than our expert guide which includes everything that you need to know about wooden floor restoration – from which tools and supplies you’ll need, the best methods to use and how exactly you can go about breathing new life into your flooring.

Restore your wooden floor in 10 simple steps…

Whether you’ve removed aged carpet and have discovered an original parquet wooden floor or if you’d like to refresh beloved wooden flooring that has incurred wear and tear over time, there are a huge number of reasons why you may be looking to restore your wooden floor. If you’ve been looking for expert advice about how to restore a wooden floor, then you could have found the answer with our guide. Our experience means that we have been able to narrow down the wooden floor restoration into 10 simple steps that can easily be followed and carried out by anyone.

1. Protect your furniture, surroundings and yourself

Whether you’re carrying out your wooden floor restoration in your home or community space, you must take the necessary steps to protect and remove any furniture or possessions that you don’t want to get dirty or damaged throughout the process. If you can, you should remove everything from the room, but if this isn’t possible then a plastic or canvas sheet or covering will do the job nicely. We recommend that you wear clothes or overalls that you’re not afraid to get dirty, as well as protective goggles and a dust mask for ultimate protection throughout the process.

2. Gather your tools and supplies

If you’ve been searching for how to restore a wooden floor, then you’ll probably have a good idea of the tools and supplies that you’ll need to complete the job. If not, then you’ll likely need to buy, borrow or hire the following:

3. Sand your floor

Once you’ve removed everything from your room and have collected all of your supplies, it’s time to begin sanding your floor. Our top tips for floor sanding are to move the sander at a steady and even pace, we also recommend moving the sander in the direction of the wood’s grain instead of against it. Be sure to empty each bag of sawdust as it fills and dispose of it properly.

4. Edge the walls

There will be areas of your room that the floor sander won’t be able to reach, to make sure that your floor is properly sanded, you should use an edging machine for these hard-to-reach areas and may even need to use sandpaper for some of it for maximum results.

Chest of Draws Restoration Process

As with many undertakings, the first step is to remove the draws, put them on the bench and clean up so we can better see what we’re working with. As the existing finish on the chest of draws was too badly damaged. We decided to carefully chemically strip the existing finish, together with a light sanding to remove a lot of the roughage, as well as stripping away remnants of the original finish So as not to damage the mahogany wood and veneering. It’s very important to do this carefully and thoroughly, as whatever finish we decide to use, it will enhance and accentuate whatever is beneath it. In this case, if there are remnants of the original finish remaining, they will show through in our finished product, creating an undesired contrast in both colour and tone. The ink blotting had to be removed with an acid solution, which worked extremely well. As with all solvents, always use the correct PPE in a well-ventilated area.

What Is Mahogany Curved Chest of Draws Restoration?

The structure of the unit also required some work to repair and strengthen it. During the Mahogany Curved Chest of Draws Restoration, several of the drawers was weak at the seams, and one of the legs at the base was crooked and required replacing. We carefully sourced a matching wood replacement, cut it to size and affixed it, taking care to ensure the top surface of the unit was level. We also took care to check the runners on each drawer were level and smooth. While a lot of contemporary drawers will use small wheels in their runners to help guarantee ease of use, this piece of furniture precedes such trends and we wanted to keep it that way. With that in mind, the runners had to be finely sanded to keep the surface both within the unit itself, as well as on the drawer, as smooth as possible to keep any friction to a minimum. Later in the project, we’d apply a generous coat of wax to the runners to help lubricate them.

With the structure of the unit repaired, it was time to get some fine smoothing done! This is important to ensure that the product is smooth to the touch at the end of the job, but also to work to mitigate and remove as many traces of damage as possible. When wood is mishandled, dropped and stored improperly, it can be dented and suffer imperfections. Unfortunately, these marks and blemishes can be tough to remove. When sanding, you are always reducing the amount of wood you have to work with, you can never gain surface area, only lose it.

Since many of the damages suffered are gouges and dents, they also cut into the amount of wood you have to work with. Sanding to level these out is a fine balancing act, as if you’re not careful, to remove a gouge you can end up creating a big dip in its place. With this in mind, it can often be best to tidy up any blemishes to remove rough edges, and then use a natural wax to fill in the gap. We did this multiple times during this project, and as is often the case, when you do something right, nobody notices you’ve done anything at all. Blending this natural wax into the grain of the wood to match the colouration is a very time-consuming process, but one that is worth it in the end.

With the unit and drawers fully sanded, it was time to apply our finish. In the end, we settled on using traditional french polish, to keep in sympathy with the mahogany and finished with beeswax, this gives a lighter, natural finish that allows this wonderful mahogany C.O.D. to blend seamlessly into a modern home setting. We are also specialists in wooden floor restoration as well as all your wooden furniture! Don’t buy new with Barfords.