Refinished Douglas Fir Floors

It is a soft wood.

Refinished douglas fir floors.

Or is it too soft. Like most types of wood flooring fir is considered a unique addition to the home which adds warmth and character that can t be achieved with other materials. To make the house somewhat liveable i had the floors refinished. Is douglas fir suitable to refinish.

I just bought my first home. Fir floors are much softer than traditional hardwood flooring making them a bit more difficult to sand and refinish. The hardness varies pending on the pine species being used. Here are the basics of how to refinish douglas fir flooring successfully.

Technically pine flooring is not a hardwood. I wasn t 100 sure that refinishing would work because as the before photos show the floors were in bad shape. April 7 2007 at 6 03 pm 13 comments. If the staining comes out blotchy use a stain controller first flooring is one of the most common uses of the wood especially in the west where douglas fir is still widely available.

Douglas fir is softer than most hardwoods but it is easy to work with and stains and finishes really well if staining is your cup of. In this case you are going to want to refinish the floor. There s laminate flooring down but under the laminate there s douglas fir. What many homeowners don t realize is that refinishing hardwood floors isn t just about looking pretty it s about maintaining the life your floors.

As with all refinishing projects if you re going to stain you should test it first in an inconspicuous place to see how the wood reacts. A proper stain and finish does more than add color and shine underfoot. On the janka hardness scale southern yellow pine is 870 douglas fir 660 and eastern white pine 380 compared to red oak which is 1290. It also protects the wood from damage.

However in some cases it can be scratched and start to look a little bit old. As a result pine tends to dent and scratch a lot more easily. Douglas fir flooring is a very durable type of hardwood flooring. Beautiful durable and easy to work with douglas fir has been utilized for decades by fine craftsmen and homebuilders for wood floors.

Refinished doug fir floors.