Preparation for sanding your floors is the most important step. Whether you do it yourself or get in a professional, lack of preparation may leave you unhappy with the result and cause unnecessary rework.

Lift It Up

The first step in preparing your floors is actually getting at them. You will need to remove all furniture from the room or rooms that you are going to work on and store it elsewhere. The whole process will take a few days. The more rooms you do, the more storage space you need. You then need to remove all current coverings including underlay. Don’t forget that these coverings will need to be disposed of, so make plans.

Smooth Surfaces

You now need to go over your floors and remove all traces of nails and staples. You can use a variety of tools but basically you need to pull out staples and hammer in nails. If you have rough adhesives on the floor boards these may also need to be removed.

If you don’t remove all traces of nails and staples you may damage the sanding machines. If you have purchased a sander for the job you at least want it to see the distance. Some professionals will include floor preparation as part of the package.