New and high-quality laminate or parquet is expensive. However, it is not necessary to completely dismantle the old coating and replace it with a new one. A durable and expensive floor that has lost its former appeal can be updated. All work can be done independently. Restoration of floors does not take much time. But the result may exceed all expectations.
Preparing the room
Restoration of a wooden floor requires careful preparation. To do this, you need to completely free the room: take out furniture and appliances, carpets, remove unnecessary tools. To carry out the work, it is enough to remove everything that is on the floor. However, the restoration of old floors is associated with dust and dirt, so it is better to completely empty the room (remove paintings, shelves, photographs), wash the floor and let it dry.
First you need to carefully examine the coverage. It is better to circle with chalk all those places whereare damaged. This helps ensure that you don't miss any areas that need repair.
Restoration of floors is carried out according to the following instructions:
- Prepare the premises for work.
- Get the right tools.
- If the floor has gaps, they need to be hidden.
- Remove creaking, swelling and darkening of flooring.
- The floor is polished and puttied (any deformation is excluded).
- Apply top coat.
What tools will be needed for restoration
The number of tools depends on how large the work will be. Usually, the restoration of parquet floors requires the following tools and materials:
- Angle grinder.
- Sandpaper (it is important to get paper of different grits).
- Putty.
- Finish coat.
You need to purchase (rent) not only a grinder, but also consumables for it. Depending on the type of coating, you need to choose a tool with a certain abrasiveness. For example, for hardwoods, it is better to choose a device with large fractions, and for softwoods, you will need a medium grit tape. The fine-grained fixture is ideal for the final stage of the restoration.
Fix gaps
Gradually, the boards of the old floor begin to loosen. As a result, gaps appear. Sooner or later, a similar problem occurs even with the highest quality coating, because the tree -it is a natural material that tends to dry out. Restoring an old wooden floor with gaps requires a special approach, as almost the entire coating is damaged.
If the gaps are not very large, you just need to mask them with a special putty for woodworking. Subsequently, it is necessary to maintain a certain temperature in the room so that repeated cracks do not appear on the floor.
If the damage is large, you need to try to pull the boards off, and fill the vacant space with small wooden blanks. If the gaps are all over the floor, it will have to be dismantled and re-laid, replacing the damaged boards with new ones. it is desirable to select them of the same shade and structure.
How to get rid of the squeak
Restoration of the floor in Khrushchev is often associated with the elimination of creaking, which is typical for such old buildings. creep occurs because the boards just rub against each other when people walk on them. To get rid of the squeak, you need to fit them one to the other with a hardware at the right angle.
An equally common cause of squeaking is the delamination of the coating from the floor. The unpleasant sound will disappear if the cover is put back in place. To do this, there are such types of work:
- Attach the covering to the floor with self-tapping screws.
- Use glue, mounting foam.
- Dismantle the floor and re-lay it..
If the creak appeared due to improper installation (when the distance between the lags was calculated incorrectly), the restoration of the woodensex will become a particularly difficult process. You will have to re-install it.
Swelling wood flooring
Restoring a floor from boards that are deformed requires attention and care. Most often, height differences occur due to swelling of the floor, which arose due to flooding or wetting of the coating.
If swelling is formed only in a certain area, it is necessary to dry this place with a hair dryer. You need to act quickly. While the mastic is heated, a dense fabric is placed on the deformed area and pressed with a heavy object.
If the floor is swollen over the entire area of the room, but the moisture has not yet managed to penetrate into the deep layers of wood, it is enough to wipe it dry, ventilate the room and dry the floor. Otherwise, it will be necessary to carry out dismantling work and re-lay the coating.
How to remove darkening
Over the years, the flooring may darken slightly. This is usually due to the fact that the top coat for the floor was chosen incorrectly, various substances penetrated deep into the structure of the tree.
In this case, the restoration of floors comes down to sanding (leveling with scraping), grinding and applying a finish coat. Most often, this is a special tinting agent that helps to hide the darkening. Sometimes an oil mixture can be used to treat a darkened floor.
Sanding
First you need to scrape. To do this, remove the top layer of the coating. This step can be skipped if the damage to the floorinsignificant. In this case, you can immediately proceed to the next step.
Sanding is the removal of a thin layer of wood, which usually does not exceed one millimeter. Using a special tool, the floor is polished in different directions. Work carefully to get a perfectly flat surface. The main goal of such work is to remove the damaged layer.
Putty for small scratches and large cracks
Small scratches occur during operation or during sanding. In the second case, the scratches are minor and almost imperceptible. They can be removed by grinding. You can also treat damage with putty for wood products. Large cracks are eliminated only with the help of a special paste. It is applied with a spatula, the remnants of the putty are removed after it dries. Subsequently, the floor is sanded again and then varnished.
Using a decorative finish
Applying the top coat is the final step. The substance helps protect the floor from further damage. In addition, the flooring will give a more attractive and modern look to the room.
Experts recommend using lacquer as a top coat. This substance must be applied to the floor in several layers. The more layers, the more reliable and durable the flooring will be. It is thanks to the varnish that you can achieve a beautiful shine.
With the help of oil and wax compounds it is impossible to achieve a rich sheen, but becoming penetrates into the deeper layers of wood, so the result is long-lasting.
Renewal of other types of flooring
Restoration of mosaic floors is carried out using the "polished concrete" technology. Thanks to modern polishing methods, the mosaic floor will look much more attractive than before restoration.
How to care for the floor after restoration work
After the restoration, you must follow a few simple rules:
- The room must maintain an optimal level of humidity.
- The floor should not be exposed to direct sunlight for long periods.
- No sand on the floor, which can scratch the coating again.
Maintaining a quality floor is not difficult. Instead of shoes with heels, you need to wear soft slippers, put special linings under the legs of chairs and tables. The restoration process is not as costly as the installation of a new coating. There is no need to buy new porcelain stoneware and tear off the old coating. Mosaic can be quickly put in order.
To carry out the restoration, you will first need to remove the damaged and contaminated top layer of the coating. For this, high-quality grinding is carried out using special equipment.
Various dyes can be used for work. Then the flooring will become bright and original. If the mosaic has peeled off the floor, it is removed and new material is laid in its place. If there are cracks in the mosaic floor, they can be masked with sealant.
Marble
Restoration of a marble floor is a long and complicated process. It is problematic to carry it out at home. Usually such work is carried out by specialists. Marble is an expensive material. It will be costly to restore it.
Restoration work is carried out in the following way:
- If the surface of the coating is slightly deformed or has slight differences, it can be corrected by coarse grinding with special equipment.
- After removing irregularities, secondary (less aggressive) grinding is carried out, and then polished. Thanks to these actions, you can make the surface of the marble perfectly even.
- In order for the surface of the marble to become shiny and the natural material to return to its former color, specialists use the crystallization procedure.
- If there are small cracks or chips in the floor, they must be carefully masked with special compounds.
At the final stage, you need to protect the flooring from possible damage in the future. For each specific case, different means are used to help eliminate the likelihood of various negative factors affecting the marble. If it is not possible to restore the marble, the floor is dismantled and re-laid.
What should be considered in the process of work? Pre-marble coating is inspected, assess the degree of damage, the amount of materials needed. Experts determine the thickness of the marble layer that needs to be removed so that the coating looks likenew.
To begin with, the room is freed from everything superfluous, the floor is cleaned of dust and dirt, washed and allowed to dry. Great attention must be paid to the seams between the plates. The seams must be treated with acetone, as well as with special glue, which is subsequently painted to match the color of marble.
With the help of crystallization, you can make the material durable, shiny and waterproof. When special crystallizers hit the surface of the marble, they fill the pores of the natural material, creating a reliable and durable protective layer. In the future, it is much easier to care for such a coating.
Conclusion
We found out how floors are restored. This is a fascinating but rather problematic process. It is advisable to carry out such work if an expensive coating of natural wood or marble is laid in the apartment. In this situation, it is cheaper to restore the old floor and give it a second life than to carry out all the work again, buy expensive materials and install a new floor. A well-made repair will noticeably transform the room and return the attractiveness to the design of the room.
