New and high-quality laminate or parquet are expensive. However, it is not necessary to completely dismantle the old coating and replace it with a new one. Durable and expensive floor, which has lost its former attractiveness, can be updated. All work can be done independently. Restoration of the floors does not take much time. But the result can exceed all expectations.
We prepare the room
Restoring 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 study the coating. Better to chalk all the places where the damage is. This helps not to miss a single site that needs repair.
Floor restoration is carried out according to the following instructions:
- To prepare the premises for work.
- Get the right tools.
- If the floor has gaps, they must be hidden.
- Eliminate creaking, bloating and darkening of the floor covering.
- The floor is ground and putty (any deformations thereof are excluded).
- Apply topcoat.
What tools will be needed for restoration
The number of tools depends on how large the work will be. Typically, restoration of parquet floors requires the following tools and materials:
- Angle grinder.
- Sandpaper (it is important to purchase paper of different grain sizes).
- Putty.
- Topcoat.
It is required to purchase (rent) not only a grinding machine, 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 softwood you will need a tape of medium grain size. The fine-grained fixture is ideal for the final stage of restoration.
Gap elimination
Gradually, the planks of the old floor begin to loosen. As a result, gaps appear. Sooner or later, a similar problem arises even for the highest quality coating, because wood is a natural material that tends to dry out. Restoring an old wooden floor with crevices requires a special approach, since almost the entire coating is damaged.
If the cracks are not very large, you just need to mask them with special putty for working on wood. Subsequently, it is necessary to maintain a certain temperature regime in the room so that repeated cracks do not appear on the floor.
If the damage is large, you need to try to pull off the boards, and fill the vacant space with small wooden blanks. If the slots are all over the floor, it will have to be dismantled and reinstalled, replacing damaged boards with new ones. It is advisable to select them of the same shade and structure.
How to get rid of a creak
The restoration of the floor in Khrushchev is often associated with the elimination of the creak that is characteristic of such old buildings. creep occurs because the boards simply rub apart when people walk on them. To get rid of the squeak, you need to fit them one to the other using the hardware at the right angle.
An equally common cause of creaking is peeling of the coating from the floor. Unpleasant sound will disappear if you put the cover back in place. For this, there are the following types of work:
- Attach the cover to the floor with self-tapping screws.
- Use glue, foam.
- Dismantle the floor and re-install it ..
If the creak appears due to improper installation (when the distance between the lags is not calculated correctly), restoration of the wooden floor will become a particularly difficult process. You will have to re-install it.
Bloating of wood
Restoring flooring from boards that are deformed requires attention and caution. Most often, height differences occur due to swelling of the floor, which arose due to flooding or wetting of the coating.
If bloating is formed only in a certain area, it is necessary to dry this place with a hairdryer. 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 has swelled over the entire area of the room, but 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 reinstall the coating.
How to remove darkening
Over the years, the flooring may darken slightly. Usually this is due to the fact that the finishing coating for the treatment of the floor was chosen incorrectly, various substances penetrated deeply into the structure of the tree.
In this case, the restoration of the floors is reduced to scrapping (leveling with scrubbing), grinding and applying the finish coating. Most often, this is a special tinting substance that helps hide darkening. Sometimes an oil mixture may be used to treat a darkened floor.
Grinding
First you need to loop. To do this, remove the top coating layer. You can skip this step if the floor damage is minor. In this case, you can immediately proceed to the next step.
Grinding is the removal of a thin layer of wood, which usually does not exceed one millimeter. Using a special tool, the floor is ground in different directions. Work carefully to get a perfectly flat surface. The main goal of such work is to remove the damaged layer.
Putty of small scratches and large cracks
Slight scratches occur during operation or during scraping. In the second case, the scratches are slight and almost invisible. They can be eliminated by grinding. You can also handle damage putty for wood products. Large cracks can only be repaired with a special paste. It is applied with a spatula, the remnants of the putty are removed after it dries. Subsequently, the floor is ground again, and then varnished.
Use of decorative coating
Finishing 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 varnish as a topcoat. This substance must be applied to the floor in several layers. The more layers, the more reliable and stronger the floor covering 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 shine, but becoming penetrates into the deep layers of wood, so the result is stored for a long time.
Updating 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 the restoration.
How to care for the floor after work on its restoration
After the restoration, you must follow a few simple rules:
- The room must be maintained at an optimum humidity level.
- The floor should not be exposed to prolonged exposure to direct sunlight.
- Sand is excluded from the floor, which may scratch the coating again.
Maintaining a good floor condition is not difficult. Instead of high-heeled shoes, soft slippers should be worn, and special linings should be placed under the legs of chairs and tables. The restoration process is not as expensive as installing a new coating. There is no need to buy new porcelain tiles and tear off the old coating. Mosaic can be quickly put in order.
For restoration, initially you need to remove the damaged and contaminated topcoat. For this, high-quality grinding is carried out using special equipment.
For work, you can use various dyes. 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 on the mosaic floor, they can be masked with sealant.
Marble
Restoring a marble floor is a long and complicated process. To conduct it at home is problematic. Typically, such work is carried out by specialists. Marble is an expensive material. Its restoration will cost dearly.
Restoration work is carried out in the following way:
- If the surface of the coating is slightly deformed or has slight differences, this can be corrected by rough grinding with special equipment.
- After eliminating irregularities, secondary (less aggressive) grinding is carried out, and then polished. Thanks to such actions, you can make the surface of the marble perfectly smooth.
- To make the surface of the marble shiny, and the natural material to return to its previous color, experts 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, it is necessary to protect the flooring from possible damage in the future. For each specific case, different means are used that help to eliminate the likelihood of exposure to marble of various negative factors. If it is not possible to restore the marble, dismantling and re-laying of the floor is carried out.
What should be considered in the process of work? A preliminary marble coating is inspected, the degree of damage, the amount of necessary materials are assessed. Specialists determine the thickness of the marble layer that needs to be removed so that the coating again looks like new.
To begin with, the room is freed from all unnecessary, the floor is cleaned of dust and dirt, washed and allowed to dry. Great attention must be paid to the seams between the plates. Seams must be treated with acetone, as well as special glue, which is subsequently painted in the color of marble.
Using crystallization, you can make the material durable, shiny and water resistant. When special molds reach the surface of the marble, they fill the pores of the natural material, creating a reliable and durable protective layer. In the future, care for such a coating is much easier.
Conclusion
We found out how floor restoration is done. This is a fascinating, but rather problematic process. It is advisable to carry out such work if the apartment has an expensive coating made of natural wood or marble. 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 coating. High-quality repairs will significantly transform the room and return the appeal to the design of the room.