Sanding and Refinishing

Chicagoland Pro consistently provides homeowners with expert sanding and refinishing of their hardwood floors. We have 100% dustless machinery available for dust-free sanding and finishing. Most of the sanding work will take a minimum of three days. More time may be needed if a homeowner’s flooring also requires finishing. The stain used will also determine the time it will take to finish. Stains that are pastel or dark colored will take extra time to dry.

As soon as we have sanded some of your floor, we will show you stain colors. For desired results, we always recommend that homeowners have a picture of flooring they like so we can determine what color shade might be best. Having an approximate shade in mind will also help us narrow down the color choices to select the right one for you.

We begin the sanding process using a belt sander at the middle of the floor, a circular sander for the edges of the floor and hand scrapers for the corners. The final step is finer sanding using a buffer with a screen.
To achieve the desired results for your floor, we use various grits of sandpaper. It all depends on the type of wood and finish of the floor. For example, on a red oak floor, we start with 36 grit sandpaper, moving to finer grits until we reach 100 for the last sand. With this process, the goal is to completely remove the old finish and flatten the floor.

The final step is scraping, which is done before the finish is applied. We do this process by hand using a very sharp paint scraper to plane the wood along the edges and corners of the floor. Once scraping is finished, screening is performed with a buffer. This has a 100, 120, or 150 grit screen and works like a drywall sanding screen. The buffer smooths the floor, blending the surface evenly. The process is repeated after every coat of finish.

Stain is an oil-based liquid that seals and gives color to your new hardwood flooring. When we apply stain, we utilize a trim brush around the edges and use a cotton cloth along the rest of the floor. After an application, excess stain is wiped off. Typically we use steel wool to remove excess stain, and then simply smooth and seal your floor. When finished is applied, we do not use steel wool. Instead we perform the screening process in between coats.