Our wooden kitchen floor had reached the stage where character was becoming a polite word for damage. We have lived in this nearly 100 year old house for 15 years, and the rimu boards have carried a million meals, leaking dishwashers, muddy boots, cat claws, school shoes and the general daily punishment a busy family dishes out without noticing.

The old finish was worn thin, the colour looked tired and a few areas had lost their protection entirely. The floor was asking for another chance. Give me life, it screamed!

This is the honest, done by my own two hands method for the enthusiast home DIY type who wants a handsome result under bare feet without opening a flooring business.

If you have followed my past efforts, you will know how this goes. There was reviving my father’s old desk, then wrestling with rotten lino and bathroom flooring, and along the way I discovered the peculiar joy of electric sandpaper.

This time the target was roughly 10 square metres of kitchen rimu. Exactly like painting the walls of a house, the whole job lives or dies on preparation.

Stripping away the old finish

You cannot simply slap a layer of varnish over old residue and expect a floor you could eat off. With the room emptied and anything likely to attract dust moved or covered, I started the 40 grit pass.

I moved the Bosch steadily along the boards, working methodically and checking that each area had reached a similar colour and surface before moving on. The coarse sheets peeled back years of wear and exposed pale, clean timber underneath.

Sanding a floor with a handheld orbital is slow, close work. You feel every change in resistance through the handles, smell the dry timber warming under the pad and watch fine reddish dust settle in places you were certain had been sealed.

I am a very keen clean as I go kind of guy, especially when sanding. I must have completed a good 17 separate rounds of vacuuming residue off the floor. That sounds excessive until one lump of coarse grit gets caught beneath the next sheet and carves a fresh scratch across boards you had just tidied. The filter of my vacuum took an absolute hammering. As I drafted this, it had been washed and was drying beside the fireplace, looking nearly as exhausted as I felt.

The first complete pass showed the old coating letting go and the pale timber emerging. Vacuuming at this point kept the coarse debris away from the next sanding sheet.

A little further into the coarse work, the reward was visible across the room. The bare boards looked pale and dry, but the surface was becoming consistent and every remaining shiny patch was easy to identify.

The final sanding pass

Once the old coating had surrendered, I ran the 120 grit pass, vacuumed yet again and inspected the floor from several low angles for shiny patches, swirl marks and missed edges.

The direct leap from 40 to 120 worked well enough for this floor, although it was the weakest part of my method. A 60 and 80 grit stage between them would have removed the deep 40 grit scratch pattern more efficiently and left less work for the final sheet. The sander's perfromance shone through in this regard. 

I gave the floor a wet mop with clean water and allowed it to dry. All up, the sanding, vacuuming, washing, tool clearing and general crawling around took about four hours. Applying the first coat layer took less than 20 minutes, which is a useful measure of where the real work sits.

Bringing the rimu colour back

For the finish I chose Norski’s polyurethane varnish in satin, largely because a clear oil based satin would let the rimu colouring do its natural thing. The warmth and grain came from the timber itself. It applied easily with a small brush and cost about $60 NZ.

I masked up throughout the sanding stage and varnishing. Airborne rimu dust with decades old varnish particles attached is something to keep out of your lungs. I wore earing muffs but no eye protection - I probably should have.

The first coat goes down

I applied the first coat at about 10 pm, once the children were in bed, with the kitchen extractor running and the room ventilated through the night. A closed work area and stronger cross ventilation would improve that plan for an oil based coating.

I worked along the boards with a small brush and kept a wet edge so the coating flowed together without obvious lap marks. The varnish immediately deepened the timber from pale, freshly sanded wood into the familiar red and honey tones hidden beneath all that wear.

A day later, the colour had settled into the grain and the surface looked convincingly finished. This is the stage where a DIY enthusiast can become a little smug and a little careless.

Across the wider floor, the satin finish had brought back the depth and warmth that years of wear had flattened.

By 8 am the smell had reduced, the satin had settled and the floor had a warm, even glow. The finish felt lovely under bare feet. Surface dryness arrives well before full hardness, and the kitchen taught me that lesson without delay.

The children made breakfast, lunch and dinner happened, the cats conducted their usual inspections and footprints began appearing in the finish. When I slid the refrigerator back into position, I scratched the new coat. Irritating, predictable and completely my own doing. That is life.

The completed second coat

Roughly 24 hours after the first coat, I cleaned the surface with the mop, let it dry and applied the second. It strengthened the finish, evened out much of the first coat’s vulnerability and produced the completed floor shown in the opening slider.

The finished floor still carries a few marks and small imperfections, but the rimu has its colour back, the boards feel properly protected and the whole kitchen looks cleaner and warmer. For a DIY job completed with a handheld sander, I feel this the result was well earned, and I am very happy with the resulting look.