Best flooring finish compound according to redditors

That's hardwood, my man! Refinish that floor!

Rent a drum sander and a floor edger, start at 60 and sand in line with the boards, 80 diagonally across, then 120 in line. Stain it up (I prefer Old Masters - avoid Minwax), wait 72 hours, then seal with a catalyzed two-stage sealer like StreetShoe NXT. Anything from General Finishes is also great stuff (both their stains and sealers are great).

After you do your first pass with 60 grit, fill any gaps, nail holes from the tack strip, or imperfections with a trowelable wood floor filler like Bona Pacific Filler or Rust-Oleum Parks (NO PLASTIC WOOD ON FLOORS). If you need to plug holes where wiring may have been passed through in the past, use corks.

Also a good time to refinish or replace baseboard. The whole project will add good value to your home and will look so much better than carpet.

Hah, I like them but I understand that other people don't. The finish is really simple, just a few coats of this Osmo oil/wax.

It's probably not that big a deal. Get a board, sand it like you sanded your floor, put on the sealer you used and apply the stain and finish you want. In other words, reproduce what you've done on something you can throw away. Or use the floor in a closet, if you're that lucky. Before you think about sanding, contact the manufacturer of the finishing products you plan to use. Some things to consider:

Changing solvents (in this case water to something like mineral spirits) sometimes matters and sometimes doesn't. In this case, it probably doesn't matter very much, but it would be good to test it in limited area before you comit to the whole floor. If you're switching solvents, it's generally important to let it dry completely. Wood will always have some moisture. If you leave it for a day and have good ventilation in your house, it should be as dry as it's going to get, but you can test it by taping a piece of clear plastic down and leaving it overnight. If there's condensation, it's still drying. A moisture meter is more reliable, but really, if it feels damp or surprisingly cool to the touch, it's still too wet, and if it feels the same temp as everything else, it's probably dry enough.

It's very hard to prevent uneven absorption of stain around knots. How you apply the stain matters. I made a dining room table out of pine and did a lot of stain testing beforehand. Using a wood conditioner or shellac (which can also be used as a wood conditioner) mostly just made the stain lighter, and didn't substantially prevent uneven staining. The problem was wiping the stain. Any grain that was slightly more open, like around knots, collected a lot more stain as I moved the stain over the surface. Spraying with an HVLP gun made a huge difference, since all of the parts got the same amount, regardless of the grain. I used a TransTint dye stain diluted with alcohol, but there are alternatives. You could put TransTint on your floor, but if you were going to spray you'd have to mask off the lower few feet of your walls even with an HVLP gun. TransTint dyes are extremely concentrated, kind of like pen ink, so you can tint without significantly diluting finishes.

One option is to seal the wood so it doesn't absorb any stain, and then use a toning approach like is used in mass-produced furniture. Basically, you can tint the finish itself, and then as you add layers, it gets darker. It's not splotchy, because the floor is already sealed. The downside is you lose some clarity, since you are looking at the wood through a tinted film (polyurethane or whatever).

I'm not sure what brand you're using, but I'm not a fan of the Home Depot and Lowe's finishing products. I've been repeatedly disappointed by Minwax stains in particular. Their floor finishes are okay, but you can do better. Something like Bona.

My opinions are based on this book and experience, some with refinishing floors, more with woodworking.

That cherry is going to complicate things. Normally I'd suggest a tinted or pigmented paste wax, to fill in and hide the scratches. But cherry is not popular, and I cannot find a vendor that makes it.

So on to Plan B. Get some of these:

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Rejuvenate-Wood-Furniture-and-Floor-Repair-Markers-RJ6WM/202676224

They have a cherry pen in the set. The next part sucks, You are going to have to go over each and every scratch. Sorry, but it has to be done. Because you need to hide them to the best of your ability, before you use an acrylic wax over top of the floor, to make it shine.

I use a 33% solids formula, such as this:

https://www.amazon.com/ULTRA-GLOSS-Solids-Floor-Finish/dp/B013RDGZU0

I pour it straight onto the floor, and work it in. The instructions say to dilute it with water. I do not. I want as much material between me and the floor as I can get. I know it goes against the instructions, but that's what works for me.

There is a product, still expensive in the states, called hard wax oil:

http://www.amazon.com/OSMO-Polyx-Hard-Wax-125L/dp/B0055T61H2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404454077&sr=8-1&keywords=hard+wax+oil

I feel you want something really special in the finish; this stuff gets in the wood and leaves the surface very un-coated feeling visually; it is rich in tone but not slippery in sheen.

I would really -- for you specifically -- recommend finding a piece of the wood your existing floor is, bleach it, stain it gray, and use this on top. I believe you will find something very special, and you will still save so much money and time over buying into a blank-slate engineered solution.

Finish examples (your tone would be far more consistent after bleaching and staining):

http://media-cache-cd0.pinimg.com/originals/c8/6b/1a/c86b1a352cd7dcd45aed6d1489786eac.jpg

http://www.restoremyfloor.co.uk/media/gfx/gallery/31.jpg

http://www.pollmeier-flooring.com/pollmeier_e/bilder/p_waxoiledfloor.jpg

This, otherwise you risk additional water damage down the road. The waterproofing membrane should also be covered up with a thick later of Hydro Ban or some other waterproofing agent. This is what I used when I did my DIY shower.

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https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003CZIHR8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It looks like the wood is only stained, there doesn't appear to be a top coat. You could look into finishing them with something like this. I don't think there's much you can do to completely prevent the damage a dog's going to do though, aside from putting a runner back on.

Hydroban (you may find it cheaper at your local tiling store - and/or be able to buy "cuts" of the fabric for only as much as you're actually needing) is a paint on membrane that has some insane expansion capabilities (iirc around 9:1). I've used hydroban effectively as a crack isolation membrane before (it also has other uses) - it's probably one of if not the best product on the market at its price point. We don't really typically use crack iso a lot in NZ (some tilers have never touched the products with such intentions), so again, take that with a grain of salt.

Kerdi is a sheet membrane. I'm not familiar with it's expansion characteristics.

Applied directly to the concrete - under the SLC.

One other thing you could consider doing is chasing the crack with an angle grinder and masonry blade, then filling with a low viscosity polyurethane adhesive. But that's probably going so far above and beyond what you're needing to achieve.

What sander are you renting? It's most likely an ez-8 which are absolutely useless. 110v machines are not aggressive enough and will take forever. Also if you cant get your hands on a multidisk or trio or even a varathane sander you will want to buy screens and rent a buffer. Finish big machine at 80 grit. Then finish all edging and then palm sand anywhere you edged making sure to get all scratch out. I would not suggest staining as that is extremely difficult for a beginner to pull off with no scratch and no lap marks etc. Also any imperfections you made with the drum sander or edger will show up way more. Don't use any stain or finish found at big box stores, it is honestly useless and not durable at all the minwax stains take like 3 days to dry and fine print on can says not for use on floors. The varathane stains have compatibility problems where if you use a water based finish on top it will peel. If you are going to stain do not do more than one coat, that will also cause adhesion issues with the finish and it will peel. This is a very good finish, extremely durable and will last. Use the basic coatings sealer underneath or you'll end up with aide bonding and get while lines everywhere with the movement of the wood. I would suggest some oil based finishes such as bona woodline or Sampson wood armour but those products can't really be shipped because of VOC issues. Itll cost a lot more. Your local hardwood distributor may sell some to you, but usually you have to be a flooring contractor with an account with them to buy products, but you may get lucky if you ask. If you can get some oil based finish I would recommend bona dry fast sealer and bona woodline or Sampson wood armour. Much much much tougher than anything home depot or Lowe's sells, but ultimately the streetshoe 275 will be the toughest finish without going moisture cure or UV cure.

For uneven places in the floor, if they're small, squares of peel-and-stick flooring can work wonders. You can cut them to the rough shape you need using a sheetrock knife, stack them on top of one another, etc.


Quick tips:

• Pull off your baseboards.
  
  
• Lay your first piece of flooring with some expansion room. To get the expansion room right, use a hunk of wood or some hardboard from the store (that shit's quite cheap). I'd suggest laying your entire first row first.
  
  
• The pieces are usually tongue and groove. They connect into each other at an angle, thengo flat.
  
  
• STAGGER YOUR PIECES so they don't end at the same spot. You can use the leftovers at the other end of the room.
  
  
• Tongue and groove flooring isn't symmetrical, if/when you have to cut them. If you're planning on using any cut material anywhere else in the room, pay attention wo which side has the tongue/groove.
  
  
• Get yourself one of these and a rubber mallet. These things will allow you to tap boards into place and get rid of gaps. NEVER HIT LAMINATE FLOORING DIRECTLY. If you're stuck getting the last of a gap to disappear, take out the piece and try again.
  
  Installing laminate flooring can be a fun job, so enjoy!

I'm not sure if you know that we have a grey PVC shower pan liner that goes completely around the interior bathroom wall except for the section between the door frame.

The following week includes many examples of a gray PVC shower pan liner:
https://www.google.com/search?q=grey+PVC+shower+pan+liner&safe=active&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj6xv_ho_LTAhWHsFQKHWUqBKAQ_AUICygC&biw=1093&bih=498

Imagine if one of those gray PVC shower pan liner were properly installed except it had been cut between the door frame.

Therefore— except where the door frame meets the bathroom floor—it seems like it might be unnecessary to waterproof the area at the base of the interior walls because although the mortar is porous directly behind it the gray PVC shower pan liner is not.

Are you familiar with the following products?

Redguard
https://smile.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=redgard

Laticrete
https://smile.amazon.com/Laticrete-Hydro-Barrier-1-Gallon/dp/B00BFIWEH8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1494864099&sr=8-2&keywords=laticrete

I wonder if instead of using the rubber baseboard and sealing it with silicon as you suggested, perhaps it might be better to use one of those two products to waterproof the area where the door frame meets the bathroom floor.

Those aren't stains. That is damage to the protective clear coat. You can probably make it disappear by using acrylic wax on it.

https://www.amazon.com/ULTRA-GLOSS-Solids-Floor-Finish/dp/B013RDGZU0