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Guide to Hardwood Floor Refinishing and Repair

Get professional tips and techniques for making old wood floors look new again in this collection of Fine Homebuilding articles and videos.

A beautiful hardwood floor can make any home feel warm and inviting. That’s why you can find wood floors in homes of every age and style across the country. Plus, hardwoods like oak, maple, cherry, and walnut are extremely durable, which means a floor made from these materials can look great for decades if it’s well cared for. But eventually most wood floors with need some work to bring them back to their former glory; that’s where this guide comes in. We’ve compiled this comprehensive list of articles from some of the most experienced hardwood floor repair experts–including Charles Peterson, Scott Sidler, and Brent Kelosky–to give you the know-how to get the job done right.

  • How-To 1
    Refinish Your Wood Floors

    Uncover the beauty in old hardwood flooring with a little patience and some great professional advice.

  • How-To 2
    11 Wood-Flooring Problems and Their Solutions

    For flawless wood floors, avoid these installation and finishing mistakes

  • How-To 3
    Refinishing Floors Safely

    Refinishing floors is not inherently dangerous. Nonetheless, there are safety issues to consider.

  • How-To 4
    Invisible Repairs to Hardwood Floors

    The key is finding boards that match and installing them with care.

  • How-To 5
    Patching a Hardwood Floor
    2 Methods for Patching a Hardwood Floor

    Learn professional techniques for evaluating damaged flooring, removing individual boards, and installing seamless repair patches.

  • How-To 6
    Sanding and Finishing Hardwood Floors

    A practical guide to a beautiful surface

  • How-To 7
    Can My Flooring Be Refinished?

    Q: I have a 1910 bungalow with hardwood floors in need of refinishing. You can see the nails on the surface, and I’ve had flooring companies tell me that the…

  • How-To 8
    Project House: Wood-Floor Repair, Ep. 1 – Introduction

    Justin travels to Orlando, Florida, to see how a restoration expert patches an old wood floor

  • How-To 9
    Finishing Rough-Sawn Flooring

    If you’re installing the new flooring parallel to the existing nail-down floor, use a plywood underlayment first to avoid large gaps.

  • How-To 10
    A Wood Floor That Can Survive Anywhere

    In a basement or on a slab, create a stable platform to support quality engineered-wood flooring.

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