When Should You Refinish Your Hardwood Floors?

If you care about the condition of your home, it’s never a bad time to start thinking about making home improvements that could help increase your property’s resale value and curb appeal. Making a significant change to your home’s appearance doesn’t have to involve a ton of expensive additions, either. If you’re thinking about making a serious improvement to your home’s appearance and sprucing things up without spending a ton of money, refinishing your floors is a great way to do it. Whether you decide to do it yourself or hire a trusted company like Buff & Coat floor refinishing, it’s the perfect way to give your home a brand-new feeling without a hefty price tag attached. However, if you’re truly budget conscious and trying to cut corners, you might assume that your floors can benefit from a deep clean and a new wood stain. While this is true in some cases, it’s not always the best move to skimp on refinishing. If you’re seriously thinking about improving your home floors, here are a few instances when refinishing is your best option.

When Your Floors are Filled With Gaps

In many situations, a floor that looks dirty, spotty, or dull can be easily perked up by a deep clean or a new topcoat. However, if you’re dealing with serious damage to your floor, such as missing or broken floorboards, cracked pieces of wood, and nails jutting out everywhere, refinishing your floors won’t just make your home look better: It will help take care of the genuine safety hazard that is your current flooring. Any time your floors simply look unsafe to walk on, you can probably bet that they’re not doing their job. Floors are meant to trap in heat, provide equilibrium, and keep unpleasant leaks and dirt out. If your floors are full of gaping holes and rotting wood, it’s time for a serious upgrade.

When a Quick Fix Won’t Do

There’s a difference between sprucing up a dull-looking surface and fixing a total wreck of a hardwood floor. If your floors are technically fine but always manage to look dirty even after the deepest of deep cleanings, you have a problem that an extra layer of Murphy’s simply won’t fix. Some floors take their time to dull down, and other floors, often those made of inexpensive or extremely old wood, will need a bit of extra care in order to look their best. If you’re dealing with a floor that always looks tired and dull, refinishing is a great option. It will last longer than a regular stain or topcoat, and it will actually help strengthen your floors in the long run. This is especially important for houses that are older or have historical value.

When You’re Redoing the Entire Space

If you’re tearing everything up for a major renovation, there’s no reason to leave your floor looking the way it does, even if it’s technically presentable. Refinishing your floors is a far easier (not to mention cheaper) task than ripping everything up and starting from scratch. You’ll also be able to make your entire space look brand new by doing way less as long as your floor look polished and pristine. Refinishing your floors can end up boosting your home value even more than your renovation, so if you’re committed to upping the resale value on your investment, you don’t want to stop short. Take the extra time to refinish your floors while doing a large-scale remodel or building on that new addition. You’ll be looking at a higher selling price and healthy, long-lasting floors that won’t need much more than a regular deep cleaning every so often to look their best.

When the Dirt is Too Tough

Some wood floors have just been around too long to even benefit from a serious, aggressive cleaning session. If you have a home with older floors, you’ve probably done just about everything you can think of to make them sparkle, with diminishing returns. Sometimes the only thing to do with older wood is to do a full refinishing job. While adding on a stain can make a floor look temporarily better, it can often backfire. If you’re working with an older, darker wood, a stain can end up accentuating the dirty spots of your floor rather than helping to gloss them over. If you’ve already been through your fair share of wood treatments, it might be time to invest in a proper refinishing session to help preserve and protect your floors.