San Francisco Victorian

This is not a job for faint of heart which is why we opted for this job to be done by the professionals. One might think to themselves, “hey I can sand, why not do them myself?”. Wrong! If you’re refinishing one small room, maybe. Even then, it will take you at least a weekend with some trial and error not to mention tool rentals and back breaking work. This is not something you want to attempt with a Craftsman belt sander and a few friends.

Do what we did and hire an expert. In this case, we called Jesus Estrada, owner and operator of Architectural Floors. Him and his crew were in an out in less than a week and thats doing over 2,000 square feet! They paid close attention to all the little nuances of our 120 year old floors. Our floors are not tongue and grove but flat white oak nailed right to the subfloor. Also, each room has decorative inlay, some are very intricate and some are simple bands of cherry around the room.

In any case, Jesus and his crew reset every single nail in the entire house, sanded all the floors down, completely puttied them, and sanded again. Then, and only then could they put on a coat of chestnut stain and three coats of varnish. This was no small job and we are quite happy with the results.

See more photos of the floors here.