Best floor polishers near Oneonta, AL

Before starting on a full refinishing project, determine if your floors need to be completely sanded down to the bare wood or if the damage is shallow and mostly cosmetic. Deep scratches and gouges will require you to rough sand using a drum sander or belt sander, but small surface scratches or floors that have only lost their luster don’t need a complete overhaul. Instead, you can skip the rough sanding step and sand-screen the old finish with a buffer, removing only the top layer of polyurethane.

You can use dish soap mixed with warm water to clean just about any type of flooring, and while vinegar is a great addition to some floor cleaners, it’s not a good idea to use it on wood flooring or engineered wood flooring. Vinegar is very acidic, and it can gradually eat away at the protective finish on wood floors. If you’re cleaning laminate, tile, concrete, or vinyl floors, feel free to use vinegar and water in a 1-to-1 ratio with a few drops of dish soap. For wood floors, substitute the vinegar for olive oil.

If you have waxed floors or floors with a penetrating stain or oil, you can shine them up with some more wax and a cloth or floor buffer. After cleaning the floor thoroughly, apply wax to the floor in small sections and use a clean, dry cloth or towel to buff it until it shines. You can also use an electric polisher, which is especially handy for large floors.

Before installing shoe molding, evaluate redoing or refinishing any floors and painting your walls or baseboard before putting on your shoe molding. If you don’t already have baseboard trim, you should install that before adding shoe molding. Shoe molding is the final touch. Additionally, a carpenter or other professional that’s installing shoe molding might also give you a deal on installing crown molding and replacing other trim if you get them done at the same time.