Wood Floor Refinishing | Sand & Stain
We provide wood floor sanding, staining, and refinishing services in Minneapolis/St. Paul. Call Raven to restore your hardwood floors or customize new flooring!
Sand, stain, and finish
A complete sand, stain, and finish is the process of sanding your hardwood floors all the way to the raw material, applying a stain in the hue of your preference, and then topping the wood with a protective finish. Each step requires care, but in the hands of a professional the final result is quite the statement.
Sanding
When sanding a hardwood floor, the devil is truly in the details. At Raven, we've mastered the technique of sanding and create clean, raw wood canvases on which we transform the look of your home.
Process:
When we sand a floor, we use progressively finer grit sandpaper to remove existing finish or surface imperfections of raw wood. It takes a fair amount of equipment, time, and experience to do a good sanding job. If your contractor is inexperienced or rushes through this process, they're likely to leave skip marks, rough patches, or circular edging indentations. Sadly, mistakes during the sanding process usually reveal themselves once your floor is finished in the form of discoloration or noticeable indentations. Do not compromise on the sanding process: seek a qualified, experienced professional. Usually, I'm a fan of do-it-yourselfers, but this is not something for the novice to try.
Dust-free sanding:
You might see flooring companies offer "dust-free sanding." Unfortunately, there is no such thing: no matter how much we try, we cannot eliminate 100% of the dust created during the sanding process.
At Raven, we always take the time to cover furniture and hang plastic over doorways and cabinets to protect your home from dust. To prevent dust from getting in the floor, we spend a big chunk of time cleaning surfaces before we apply coats of stain and finish. Our goal? Leave your home better than we found it.
It's truly amazing how good and old, ugly floor can look after its been redone.
If your floor needs to be sanded, we'd love to hear from you.
Staining
Staining definitely adds time and cost to a project, but it truly gives you the ability to customize the color of your floor. Picking a stain for your home is tough when you're in the showroom (there are a ton of colors). But, after sanding is finished, we can apply different stains on your floor so you can decide which you like best in your space.
Because some woods are easier to stain than others, stain pricing varies depending on the wood in your home. Maple, for example, is a difficult wood because of its denseness. Other woods (exotics in particular) cannot be stained at all due to oils in the wood that prevent the stains from penetrating.
Staining your floor? Give us a call.
During the sanding phase, different stains can be applied to your floor, so you can choose which you like best. Pictured here: sample stains on maple flooring.
Finishing
Finishing is the last step in the flooring process, but it's the one that has the most direct impact on the longevity of your floor. Finish protects your wood; as it dries, it creates a hard, dense barrier between the flooring and the environment. Each layer of finish is like an insurance policy against severe damage caused by every day wear and tear.
Put simply: finish keeps your wood looking its best. You should not compromise your floor by using a cheap product or skimping on application.
Our sand and finish projects include:
One coat of sealer/stain
Three coats of water-base finish (not every flooring contractor does this, but they should)
We use Bona water-base finishes
It's truly unreal how many different finishes are on the market today. At Raven, we stick with what we've tried, tested, and has proven reliable on our flooring projects: Bona Water-base Finishes.
We like Bona for a few reasons:
It's an eco-friendly option
Bona products are low-odor (but not odorless)
Water-base finishes have fast drying times and dry harder than oil-base finishes.
Combined, these features mean that our clients can usually stay in their home during sanding and finishing.
If you have a different finish in mind or have used a product that you prefer, we'll do our best to accommodate you. If you don't know which finish to use, but want to explore other options, just ask: over the years we've had the opportunity to work with the large majority of finishes available. We're happy to discuss the pros and cons of each.