Sanding bathroom floor

I'm in the process of moving into a 1930's ex-council house; the floor baords are in pretty good nick so I'm hoping to sand them. Naturally I'm a bit nervous about how difficult this will be and how much work.

My question for now is if I sand the bathroom floors do I have to treat the wood with anything to make it extra waterproof or will the varnish be sufficient?

Varnish should be fine, I would use a high gloss varnish as opposed to a matt finish thought this may be 'slippery when wet'. Beware sanding white deal floors in high traffic areas, its a bit soft and the finish doesn't last too long.

A nice finish for timber boards in bathrooms is Woodwash, which is like a water based varnish with a slight tint. Two coats gives a very tough finish that looks well and is wipeable.

Thanks for that. There's only myself and my partner so there shouldn't be that much traffic or 'heavy use', when you say the finish doesn't last long...how long are we talking? The wood is red deal and the neighbours did theirs and it looks lovely.

I'm wondering if sanding will be worth the effort, my partner thinks not so I'm out to prove him wrong. Any ideas about how messy/difficult the process is? To date the worst job we've had to do is scraping ceiling paint off all the rooms....hated that.

All our floors upstairs are red deal and we sanded and varnished the lot of them. The job itself is not too messy and the first sand is often the hardest as you need to get any stains/marks out of the wood. It would be worthwhile investing in a black and decker mouse. We got one for 50 euro and comes with all the sandpaper you would require initally. Use the 120 for the first sanding and move to a finer grade for the next. We also got and industrial use varnish (becker) for the landing as that would have more traffic on it and a normal varnish for bedrooms and have had no probs with it wearing down. If you go for normal varnish i would recomend that you do the flowers 3 times.

Thats very good news that the job itself isn't horrific....I might win the battle of the upstairs floors yet!

Quick quetions; Did you rent a sander and use the Black & Decker mouse just for small areas? Does the becker varnish only need one coat?

Thanks for the reply.

Nope used the mouse sander on all floors as after doing the doors and skirting my arm was in tatters!!!!

I would be nervous about renting an industrial sander if you have never used one as can be difficult to use and can also leave an uneven sand if not used correctly p.s. when sanding and varnishing always go with the grain.

With the industrail varnish i only gave two coats of varnish and remember your second/third one is only a light sand.

A lot depends on the size of the floor to be sanded. If it's just a small bathroom floor, an industrial belt sand will probably be a little unwieldy. Anything over a few square meters and I wouldn't attempt the job without getting the bigger machines in. They're very easy to use and yield great results.

Also, given the age of the floor, you may need to remove more material to get back to the desired look, orbital sanders (such as the mouse) aren't designed for this. In this situation hiring the machine will be money well spent.

If you're very close to the desired look, an orbital sander will enhance the finish, but they won't remove anywhere near the amount of material a belt sander will.
Leo

I found hand sanders absolutely useless on old boards.
The hire machines give a fantastic finish, really quickly. Even in small rooms they should save you loads of time.
If you've never used one, they're hard enough work though. And very very heavy, loud and messy. Make sure you hammer all nails below the surface of the boards or they'll rip up the paper.

Thanks for all the info. The bedrooms are quite big and the floors have been painted a lovely (?) brown...but only in patches, so I reckon I have a lot to take off first. The hand sander sounds really cheap to buy. I might get someone in to advise me on which one to use. This needs to be done as quickly and painlessly as possible. Thanks again, its very encouraging advice.

Be aware that, however you do the sanding, the amount of dust produced will be enormous. Apart from making sure that you are wearing a good quality dust mask you need to make sure thatyou have some means of preventing the dust from filling the rest of the house.