Can i refinish these terrible floors?

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Onion69420

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I pulled my carpet and my floors are really bad. Embarrassingly bad. I have 2 dogs, 5 kids (including 2 year old twins) and 3 cats. If I can get away with refinishing myself I'd rather do that then spend big money on a new wood floor that's gonna get beat up within a couple years by my zoo. I've considered wood look tile but it's cold and labor intensive and dont wanna spend the money on having it installed.
Aside from the general poor condition, what can I do about the gaps between the boards? Fill in with the dust from sanding and apply urethane? Wood filler?20201121_175137.jpg
 
Going to make a guess, is this flooring installed directly to the floor joist with no subflooring?
Could you refinish it, yes, would it still look horrible, also yes.
To me it looks like someone did this floor with used flooring, does not even look like it's all made of the same type of wood, one area looks like there was termite damage at one time.
FIY, any type of hard flooring is going to feel cold on bare feet.
Wood look LVL would be 100% waterproof, easy to clean, easy DIY install.
 
It depends on the look you are going for. If your house is old and you like the country look and are able to do some work then give it a try.

If you want the modern look put down a laminate or similar product it is DIY and fairly cheap and will hold up thru the kids and down the road can be replaced with something better.
 
The house was built in 1945, I was thinking about going with pergo too, but I'm afraid it will kill the resale value, tho anything is better than what's there currently.
The floor isnt directly on the joists, here is a pic from the basement looking up20201122_161534.jpg
 
You might want to try the flooringfourm.com (it's an affiliated forum). But I'd probably cover it with click lock vinyl plank. It can be DIY installed. But it can be pricey & you'll want something scratch resistant & probably waterproof since you have kids & pets.
 
Pergo or vinyl? I prefer prego, not a fan of vinyl, if feels like rubber to me.
I was thinking I oughta tear up that old floor? Its nasty.
Another issue is I heat with a wood stove insert. It is surrounded by tile out about a foot from the stove, but the floor gets pretty darn hot, sometimes hot enough to cause discomfort if u leave your hand on the floor for 30 seconds.
Can pergo or vinyl handle those temps? I'm not concerned of it if igniting, but warping and buckling?
 
Pergo is just a brand, and they too make vinyl floor planks. Notice that the suggestions are for vinyl *floor planks*, not the vinyl sheeting type that used to be common on cheaper homes.

I recently tried refinishing my floor. I don't plan to do it ever again. It makes a huge mess everywhere with all the dust and the floor still looks bad. In my case, I plan to replace with engineered click wood flooring to match what I used in an adjacent room, but vinyl floor planks should handle water much better, which is what I think happened with your floors (water damage, that is).

You mentioned about the stove but, regardless of what you use, I think that you should improve the insulation to floor. That kind of heat puts a lot of stress on materials and, even if they can withstand it, it will degrade much faster than the other portions of the flooring. Moreover, it seems like you loose quite a lot of heat that way. I would consider both increasing the buffer area and use some firebricks to insulate the floor from the stove.
 
I would eliminate refinishing right off the bat and settle for vinyl, simply because it's waterproof. If you get wood or fake wood plank, you risk having to do it all over again. I would look far and wide for vinyl companies, ask them the question about the wood stove, and move forward with companies that say it's okay. If you haven't seen the fake wood Pergo stuff, it's just MDF or Particle Board. It will soak up anything spilled.
 
LVP, luxury vinyl planks, are durable and moisture resistant, a much different than the wood fiber products. You can also get finishes that are more scratch resistant.
 
Yes, LVP is what I meant. It does not feel like rubber. Some of it feels like tile. Not sure on the heat issue though. You might have to raise that heat source up a bit and put something underneath just that heater that can insulate & protect the floor.

MSI makes some waterproof click-lock stuff with 20mil wear layer. It's called Prescott line on the MSI website. On HomeDepot site it's called Herritage. I got the Prescott Braly (aka Herritage Mahogany).

I think Pergo is known for laminate but it is only water resistant and if a spill (or pet urine) sits for too long or you spill hot water, coffee, or soup on it, it can be ruined. Friend found that out when her kid accidentally spilled a bowl of hot soup on her laminate flooring (kid was trying to bring her mom some soup bc she wasn't feeling well).
 
I have replaced so many Pergo type laminate floor. That stuff just does not hold up. Once any water gets on it, the floor is damaged and has to be replaced. Even a leak from a dishwasher or refrigerator kills those conventional laminate floors.

Luxury Vinyl Planks are the way to go. They look like wood and it's hard to tell that it is not wood even by touching it. Water does not affect it. Home Depot has a nice line called Life Touch which has a lifetime warranty and the padding is already attached. I would never use any other type of laminate other than Luxury Vinyl Planks no matter what the flooring salesman tells you.
 
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