hey all,

Just got to the floors in my house and when my grandmother had the house, she put down carpeting all over the house. This was back in 1960 and when I pull up the carpet, the floors are beautiful but there is no glossy sheen. Its not bad but I do want a nice glossy floor before I move in.

Since I'm a DIY kind of a guy, so I'm not sure if I want to rent a buffer or the random orbital sander (not going to use a drum sander at all).

Also, what grit should I use as well? I want to cut the old poly off but perhaps not go down to bare wood?

Can we attach pictures? I have a picture of the floors too.

Thank you!

Hi there,
no one would tell you exactly what to do even if you attach the picture. You would have to try what works best. As I know from my experience the old finishes are very hard and it's always hard to sand them off even with the drum-sander. Since, you would need to completely remove the top layer of the existing finish to assure adhering between new coat and existing one, I would recommend you to get IFT (intensive flooring treatment) by BASIC Coating. It says you have to mix it with water 4 parts of water x 1 part of IFT, but in your case I would do 3 water x 1 IFT. The IFT would make the existing finish kind of softer plus it will clean the surface from dirt, grease, oils. So you apply 3water to 1 or 2 IFT on the floor, let it sit for 30-60 minutes then you take the screen 180 or 220 and buff the floor. You'll see, if the old finish comes off easily and becomes a powder (wear mask), than everything is good. But do not go too slow, you can buff it through to the wood, I would start buffing fast just in case you don't dig inside too deep, and than if screen does nothing to the finish and just sliding over it, you can go slower or even change to 150 grid.
You may buff it without IFT just with more agressive screen 120-150. And see how it works. After you buffed, you need to vacuum floor, tack it a few times and apply shiny finish. I would recommend to use Synteko 2-component solventbased floor finish because this stuff can adhere almost to everything.

Good Luck!

Roman (The Flooring Ninja Inc.)