When we first started to talk about how we were going to remodel the house, we had a big decision. Would we refinish the hardwood floors or cover them? It was something that we thought about for a long time. In fact, we didn’t make our final decision until we were about 2 years into our renovating. That’s right, we had already started renovating many areas throughout the house before we made our final decision.
Hardwood Floors: Why We Decided to NOT Refinish Them
We decided against refinishing the hardwood floors throughout the entire main level of the house. This was because it was going to be more work than we really wanted to put into the house. Had we had the time to think about this before moving in, we probably would have done the repairs and refinished them. However, because we were living in the house and it would have been such a mess, we decided to just cover them.
Everyone we talked to was against us covering up the beautiful hardwood floors. We didn’t want to, but we knew that we had to. There were spots that were rotted out from water damage. Gouges in many spots of the floors. There were even spots where you could tell they had been refinished in the past and the sanding wasn’t done properly.
Bathroom & Kitchen Floors
Hardwood floors in the Kitchen
Originally, we were just going to put waterproof flooring over the hardwood floors in the kitchen and bathroom because those were the two rooms that had the most damage to them. In fact, we wouldn’t have been able to refinish the bathroom floors without some major work because there were several spots that were rotted out to the subfloor.
Damaged Hardwood Floor in Bathroom
Living Room, Dining Room, & Bedrooms
We went back and forth for about 2 years before we finally made the decision to not refinish the hardwood floors in the rest of the main living area. We were talking about putting carpet in the bedrooms and not the living room and dining room. Then we thought about carpeting all four rooms. Even the entire upstairs has hardwood floors, even though they are done with refurbished hardwood flooring and they are buckled in many spots.
Hardwood Floors in the upstairs
In the end, we decided on using the same vinyl waterproof flooring throughout the entire main level of the house.
Before & After: Damaged hardwood floor in water damaged room and then covered floor.
It made the flooring uniform throughout the entire house. It also made it so that we didn’t have to hire anyone to do the work. Since I had already done the floor in the kitchen and I did the flooring in the bath house we built in Hawai’i, I knew I could do the job.
If it was a house that I was going to live in for awhile (10+ years), I think I would have refinished the natural floors. I just love the look of real wood whether it has patina in it or not. I think it gives character. But, I also know the advantages of just putting in a vinyl floor. Could go either way!!
I think this is why it took us so long to make the decision. I really like hardwood floors and wanted to just do the kitchen and bathroom with the waterproof vinyl since there are possibilities of water damage. It sucks that the previous owner(s) didn’t take care of this house, because there is so much character to it. But, since we decided to not stay here, less work made more sense to us.