Hardwood floor refinishing and sanding in Toronto

Refinish before you replace

A worn hardwood floor is rarely finished. Most solid floors, and many engineered ones, have enough wood above the tongue to be sanded and coated again. Refinishing costs a fraction of new flooring and keeps the original boards in place, which matters in homes where the floor matches the age of the house.

The real question is how far to go. That is what this page helps you decide.

Three levels of work

Option	What it fixes	What it does not fix
Screen and recoat	Dull, scuffed, lightly worn finish	Scratches into the wood, grey or bare patches, colour
Full sand and refinish	Deep scratches, worn traffic lanes, old yellowed finish	Boards that are split, loose or water damaged
Sand, stain and refinish	All of the above, plus a new colour	Boards that cannot take another sanding

A screen and recoat is a maintenance job. We abrade the top of the old finish and add a fresh coat. It is fast and keeps more wood in the floor for future sandings, but the finish has to be clean of wax and silicone polish for the new coat to bond.

A full refinish takes the floor back to bare wood with a drum sander and edger, then builds new coats. This is where most of the visible change happens.

A stain change adds colour after sanding. Going from orange-toned oak to a soft grey-brown, or from dark back to natural, is a common request. Boards that are cracked, cupped or rotted near a leak should go to our floor repair team first so the patch is sanded with the rest.

Stain you see before you commit

Stain swatches on a sample board rarely match how your own floor will take the colour. Your species, its age and how hard it was sanded all change the result. So we apply two or three samples to your sanded floor and you choose in daylight. Only then do we stain the whole room.

Keeping dust where it belongs

Dust through the house is one of the most common complaints about sanding. We put up plastic walls on doorways, cover vents in the room, and use a sander connected to a vacuum [CONFIRM equipment]. At the end of each day the work area is vacuumed and wiped down. Dust-contained is the honest term, because a little fine dust always escapes when wood is sanded.

A finish that cures properly

Streaks and a rough feel usually come from skipped steps. We buff between coats, apply the number of coats named on your quote, and give you a written cure schedule. You also get an update at the end of each day while the coats go on.

If your stairs are part of the job, see our staircase refinishing page, since treads and risers are priced separately. Thinking of pulling the floor out instead? Our guide on whether to refinish or replace hardwood floors walks through the trade-offs. When you know what you want, ask for a free refinishing quote.