How to Protect Wood Flooring During Home Refurbishment?

Currently, as not that many houses are being sold, ever more people take a decision to renovate, upgrade and improve their home instead of buying a new property. No matter if you’re renovating an old home or refurbishing a more modern property, you may need to preserve the current wooden floor – and you will need to be especially careful then.

Irrespective of whether you’re going to do it yourself or whether you want to hire someone to do it for you, it’s always advisable to take some preventative measures to protect the flooring. Wood flooring can get seriously damaged during a home renovation if you fail to protect it properly, so it’s always worth paying careful attention to make sure your floor doesn’t get damaged.

Here is some helpful advice on how to do it right. While clearing the room before getting down to work, remember to lift and under no circumstances drag the furnishings across the room. By dragging your furniture, especially those items that are quite heavy, you may cause irreversible damage to your floor. And you can avoid that with ease. But, if you can’t or don’t want to lift them, you can always use a thick rug or a blanket, by placing it under the given item, which will enable you to slide it across the floor and prevent damage.

Should internal scaffolding or ladders be required in the renovation process, you will have to put pads or cups underneath the feet of the ladders or scaffolding, to avoid damage to your wooden flooring. Obviously, it can be quite annoying and requires some additional time and effort, but it’s definitely worth it – the ladders and scaffolding are heavy and may cause permanent dents in the floor or even split or break weaker boards.

If you need to paint or plaster a given interior, you will need to protect the entire flooring from spills or splashes. The most effective solution is to use a thick plastic protective sheet, provided that the whole process won’t last too long. However, if you expect the job to take more time, a definitely more recommended solution is to use a breathable fabric, thus ensuring that the wooden flooring doesn’t get stifled.

Are you planning extensive renovation? If so, you may want to lift the floor for the duration of the work and replace it when you’re done. Even though you may think it’s too much hassle, if the flooring is of high quality and the works you’re planning are invasive, it is absolutely worth all the time and effort. In this way, you can rest assured that your flooring will be left unscathed after the work is completed.

Once all the works are done, plan some time and funds for resanding and refinishing it. Even though it’s a controversial issue whether it’s best to sand before or after final painting, in general modern day sanding devices usually suck up enough dust to make it possible for you to sand your flooring after painting, eliminating the risk of paint spills or splashes.