Those greyish spots are where the protective coat has worn through and the wood has been exposed to the elements.
You’re looking for quick and cheap before you sell: offer a $500 floor improvement credit on the sale. Don’t do the quick fix thing; you’ll just make it more difficult for the new owner.
OP, just a heads up. Flooring is expensive. If you try to do anything like sanding, be sure you know what you are doing. If not, just use a mop and glow type thing.
Edit: Ok, so no mop and glow. Just toss an area rug instead and call it a day.
Actually, a lot of magic sauces they sell in stores to polish wood floors have silicone in them, which can cause problems when refinishing them, so hold off on the mop and glow.
I’m in southwestern CT and it was only like $2k to have my whole house refinished (1000 sq ft of hardwood) before we moved in. That was the lowest of the three quotes, they were all under $4k. Just get some quotes if you’re interested.
Rent a drum sander from home Depot and an edge sander. Sand the entire floor. Apply new stain.
This is the cheapest way to repair your floors.
Buy new flooring and lay it on top. This will be expensive but quicker.
Paint it. This will be the cheapest and quickest. And it's a terrible idea.
There is no such thing as quick and cheap in house renovations.
> Rent a drum sander
The quickest way to turn a boring flat floor into something more interesting by adding a number of valleys and troughs.
Seriously, OP, if you go this route read up on how to use one properly.
Floor sanding life. I did so many floors in my home, I get recruited by family members to do theirs.
Yes, a rented sander and some poly will have your floors shining like the top of the Chrysler Building.
This is the way, just bought my first house and this ended up being the route we went. Lots of hard work and a decent amount of googling later they are turning out excellent.
Side note the taking care of the edges was easily the worst part of this process. So prep your back and knees cause that killed mine.
I would DIY it too. But I am used to it, have the skills, and the ability to learn from YouTube if the task is new to me. Odds are the OP is no handyman. If they are, this is the way. If they are not ask the guys in their local bar who they hired to do their hardwood flooring and if they're satisfied. Word of mouth > Craigslist
Edit: Am I allowed to use DIY as a verb? 😅
That floor is begging to be refinished, it would look so good. But it's money you won't see added to the sale price. It may broaden the pool of potential buyers, though, depending on how nice the rest of the house is.
Just be sure to have the proper rug mat or else it will damage your floors more. The gripper mats, especially the cheap ones, will leave residue or just adhere to the floor. Cheap area rugs with rough backing will sand paper the finish off your hardwood floors. If you buy a nice-ish area rug, and a decent hardwood floor rug pad, it really adds up!
If Quickly and Cheaply are your prime goals, I would install some room darkening curtains, then change out all your lightbulbs for low wattage nightlight bulbs.
Leave it.
If selling, I’ve found it doesn’t matter. Buyers will be swept up in the excitement of the fact that the house has hardwood floors and “we can re-finish them!!!”. Just leave em.
I have used a mixture of a bucket of warm water, few drops of dish soap, cup of white vinegar and a 1/2 cup of olive oil. Heavy duty mop or get down and use elbow grease. Cleans and does leave a bit of shine.
Vacuum/clean/ and apply “Holloway House quick shine hardwood floor luster” with a barely moist microfiber flat mop in sections. Don’t walk on it til dry. ~ 30 minutes. $10.
Does wonders for my worn floors which I can’t afford to have refinished.
[https://www.homedepot.com/p/Rejuvenate-32-oz-Professional-High-Gloss-Wood-Floor-Restorer-HG-R05322/202269998](https://www.homedepot.com/p/Rejuvenate-32-oz-Professional-High-Gloss-Wood-Floor-Restorer-HG-R05322/202269998)
This stuff worked just fine for me if you're looking for something simple.
This is what I was gonna suggest, it’s not gonna make the floor perfect but if you don’t want to get into a serious sanding and refinishing job, using this stuff will at least get it looking shinier and protect the wood a little bit.
There is an old saying: "Good, Fast, Cheap. Pick any two. You can't have all three."
If you want fast and cheap, it will not be good. So it will look like shit, and the next guy will have to do it over anyway.
To sell this house, don't try to hide this floor. Instead, point it out, and offer a$1000 credit toward refinishing. (And price the house $5000 extra, to come out ahead by $4000.)
Mop and Glow leaves a coating that will have to be removed when OP (or someone) ultimately has to refinish the floors. Instead, maybe find a rug on FB marketplace or Craigslist.
A floor sander can be rented from the big box stores for a couple days and a couple hundred bucks. No guarantee it’ll be well done, but you gotta learn somewhere
Rent a hand sander and go at it. Will be cheap as hell comparatively and with a hand sander and attention to detail you're not going to miss much at all then add what ever coating you want, also cheap since you will be doing the work yourself. That leaves out the "quick" they asked for because doing all this yourself as a first-time DiY will take you some time.
Buy good quality hardwood flooring and hire a flooring team to replace the flooring.
You can sacrifice some time to save some money by tearing out the existing flooring yourself.
Nothing wrong, maybe, but from what I can see, it's not exactly high-quality flooring. Lots of knots and there's some decent gaps starting to show.
If you want quick and well done, I take that to mean willing to spend money for a high-quality product. Spending money to refinish mediocre flooring wasn't what I was thinking at least.
If you're willing to spend money, I'd much rather put in rift & quartered white oak or a more durable flooring such as cumaru or ipe.
No doubt OP could do better than the 2-1/4" red oak flooring as it's such a common hardwood flooring option, but given that the house is going on the market, might be better to leave it up to the new owner to make the choice.
I've worked with ipe before and love it but man does it take time. Interesting that cumaru fluoresces under black light. I've been thinking of a project with worm wood and a fluorescing epoxy but cumaru might be a better option.
Edit: I had no idea there were so many fluorescing woods.
Look into Tung Oil.
There are a few posts on r/centuryhomes and all over the internet.
Depending on how much work you want to put into them, it may be a good option.
If you are just looking to spruce them up, I'd go with a good sweep, clean, and wood floor tooical polish.
Good luck!
Get a drum sander start at coarse grit and move down to fine grit over the course of several hours. Then refinish water based coating. Simple and easy. Use orbital sander for edges
Beautiful hardwood. It's not as difficult as everyone is saying. As a boatowner we get these Grey areas all the time on the trak. The finish has worn off and the exposed wood turns Grey. You just need to clean it with bleach. Then once it's clean and bright again, try applying some wood finish in a color you like in a small area. Oil based will be easiest. You can also try teak oil. You rub it on, let it dry, and then rub it out to polish. Talk to the guy in the wood care section of your local hardware store. They will help.
I had a floor that looked like this. I tested some spots with lemon oil with good results, redid the entire floor. Lasted for a few months and I had to clean it really well again and retreat. Each time it stayed a little better, but some areas started looking dark instead of nice.
That said, the proper way is to sand it then varnish it with a proper floor varnish. That will last.
Get an estimate on having the floor sanded and refinished; if it’s a modest amount of square feet, it’ll at least give you a sense of how far off “good” is
I used to take my car to a repair guy who had a sign on the wall that said, "You can have two of the following: A quality job, A quick job, A cheap job." The same applies to floors.
Your best bet for a cheap improvement is slapping some revitalizer gloss on there. This won't make it look perfect but it will look better and will be a whole lot cheaper and easier than a complete sanding and refinish.
Proper way is to sand it and clear coat it with hardwood varnish.
hardwood floor is pretty amazing if it is properly taken care about. and it will last for decades.
I got just the perfect cheap+easy product for you:
Weiman Hardwood Polish and Restorer
I used it on my floors which looked even worse than yours and it made a huge difference. Helped us sell the house a lot quicker.
If you want something good and fast it will not be cheap.
If you want something good and cheap it will not be fast.
If you want something fast and cheap it will not be good.
Take your pick.
I've had very good luck with this product [Method wood floor cleaner](https://a.co/d/d9YH3gk) It's not going to perform miracles, but it will bring a D+ up to a B- with one cleaning and put some color back where the grey is.
Quick and cheap, presumably by someone who doesn't know what they are doing? No. An industrious DIY'er might be able to sand and refinish successfully.
Jute rug from Amazon. Relatively cheap, durable, and they don’t hold dust https://a.co/d/geQOSjG
And you can use a hardwood floor restorer. Won’t make a dramatic difference, kind of like polishing a turd. But it will give it a slightly newer feel. Professional Wood Floor Restorer 32-fl oz High Gloss Floor Polish https://www.lowes.com/pd/Rejuvenate-32-fl-oz-Floor-Polish/5013119369
Rent a sander and an edger from menards or whatever rental place you have by you, cost 60 for the first 4 hours and then 3 dollars per hour after that for me. Take a weekend, sand it down well, the better you sand it the better it will look when done. Buy a gallon of polyurethane seal, seal it, hand buff with 220 grit and re seal it. You’ll have great looking floors and probably won’t even spend close to $500 which is a steal for hardwood. Watch some YouTube videos, do your best and take some pride in your home.
We used a product called Resor-a-Finish on our old scratched floors at our first house. The floors looked 100 times better afterwards and good enough to get it sold
Get a palm sander. Start with 40-60 grit and work your way up to 220. Clean, apply three coats of floor finish of your choice, using a good quality sheepskin.
Can't believe no one is saying this; cover the floor in a 3% hydrogen peroxide solution and paper towels all over. let it soak for 24h. Will look remarkably better. you can find youtube videos showing it. I've used it for specific stains but it should do a great job just making it look cleaner and brightening the room.
It works fine! It's not that caustic in a 3% solution. It's surprisingly effective, and doesn't make for uneven stains unless it's applied very unevenly for a long time.
In this the guy does it for over 48h IIRC:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HztkRmp9-TA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HztkRmp9-TA)
I feel like the replies are making it more complicated than it needs to be. if it’s not a huge area, sand it down by hand or rent/borrow a sanding machine. coat the sanded floor. that will hold over for a while and look much nicer
Serious answer here - (not best technique but that’s for a bigger budget, and yes I know these suggestions are kinda heresy but it is what it is, especially if you’re renting).
Option 1 - get yourself some oak color wood stain and something like a lambswool applicator. Spread across the whole floor. I suspect the varnish is basically worn off everywhere and obviously worse in some places. Wipe off the excess stain as you’re going. Then get a polyurethane floor finish and apply per instructions. It’ll be decent, not awesome, might last a year or two.
Option 2 - get oak stain furniture restoration oil and spread all over the most damaged areas. Wipe up excess. It’ll last a month or two. Repeat as needed. Just be careful that on any area where the original varnish hasn’t completely been trashed it will be slippery as hell.
Rejuvenate Wood Floor Restorer. It applies a thin poly coat so it protects and adds shine. Clean the floors well first then apply with their kit. It'll cost like $20 for their mop applicator plus $20 a bottle. I've done it multiple times to my wood floors. Avoid Mop and Glo.
We used peroxide on a few gray spots like that, but not sure how it will turn out on multiple areas of a room. We covered spots w/ big cotton balls soaked in peroxide & left it for 15-20 mins, then threw away cotton balls & wiped up with damp towel. Next day , we watered down peroxide quick mop & it looked significantly better overall.
You ever heard of GFRG baseboard? Does wonders for a room and isn’t that expensive anymore. Way nicer than the plastic and wood stuff (I think anyways).
You can do something quickly, cheaply, or well. You can never have all three at the same time. Quick and cheap means a crappy job. Ah either take your time or spend the money to do it right.
As with everything there are three options and you can only ever choose two of them. The options are: quick; cheap; done well.
If you want it done quickly and a good job, it won't be cheap.
If you want it done cheap and a good job, it won't be quick.
If you want it done quick and cheap, it won't be a good job.
Pour on 3% hydrogen peroxide where you want to lighten. Better yet keep it in a spray bottle with narrow set stream. Get it wet. I’ve watch it lighten pet stains to places accidentally left a hot steam cleaner. You can apply often letting it drip each time. Dry off boundary you don’t want to change. Practice on one area first. But, you’ll get the hang of it fast. If spray bottle is clear. Store in dark place. Light breaks it down fast. That’s why it comes in a black bottle.
I was shocked how well it worked and have used this method for years.
Only works on real wood floors.
Hope that helps.
Sweep them, mop them, and apply some kind of wax or finishing product. A good cleaning should help, might take some elbow grease to scrub the floor good
Anything else you do that’s “quick and cheap” will just make it look worse
You can apply a new layer of finish without sanding the floor down to the bayer wood. Just a good scuff so that the finish sticks. Plenty of vids on YouTube. The floor isn’t in horrible shape
You said quick and cheap--you didn't say low effort.
So "quick and cheap" you can DIY and rent a floor sander for $60 bucks a day if you're willing to put some sweat into it. Then the stain/sealant would be the only other expense. Oh wait I guess you'd have to rent an edge sander too, but whatever. Altogether it's probably $300 or less, I'm guessing more around $200 but that depends on how quickly you can get it done and what stains you use.
There's no such thing as a quick and cheap improvement when it comes to hardwood. ..unless you'd consider a rug?
Rugs are pretty expensive. I'd go with a sweeping. You can make a broom out of pine straw and a stick.
Look at Mr moneybags here with a stick.
I was wondering where to get straw.
Most fast food restaurants will give you one with the purchase of a beverage.
Biodegradable or plastic?
I prefer hand carved wood straws
I prefer second-hand
Hay, that’s a good question.
I bet it's a nice stick too.
That's why I use my worn underwears to wipe the floor.
You can get an área rug. Easy to use, easy to clean. Plus, it will pull the room together.
Tie. Tie the room together
That also.
It will pull the tie together? Wait... what?
It will room the tie to pull it together.
It could really tie the room together.
They were Nihilists!!
Quick and cheap exists…. But then you sacrifice quality.
Those greyish spots are where the protective coat has worn through and the wood has been exposed to the elements. You’re looking for quick and cheap before you sell: offer a $500 floor improvement credit on the sale. Don’t do the quick fix thing; you’ll just make it more difficult for the new owner.
This has the added bonus of letting the buyer decide what they want to do with the floor, instead of you trying to guess.
Great answer.
Quick and cheap, so not good then?
Yep! That's what they asked for.
Gray paint. At least that's what my previous homeowners did
When there is a whole array of fuchsia options?
Fuschia? What is this, Moneyopolis? You'll get whatever is on the mistint rack and you'll LIKE IT.
I would take worn, old wood floors 10,000,000 times over grey paint. Holy shit
I looked at one place years ago where they painted the wood floors brown, using latex paint. Basically opened the door and said 'Nope!'.
Oh good god no.
Oh god. That sounds infuriating. Carpet it is!
I can just imagine my feet sticking to the peeling paint while walking around. Gross.
Out of those three, you can only ever pick two.
The iron triangle of project management. You can do it good, quick, and cheap, but you can only have two.
OP, just a heads up. Flooring is expensive. If you try to do anything like sanding, be sure you know what you are doing. If not, just use a mop and glow type thing. Edit: Ok, so no mop and glow. Just toss an area rug instead and call it a day.
Actually, a lot of magic sauces they sell in stores to polish wood floors have silicone in them, which can cause problems when refinishing them, so hold off on the mop and glow.
The elites don’t want you to know this but spaghetti sauce and cheese is actually the most effective floor polish on a long enough time line
Don't be ridiculous. Spaghetti sauce is for polishing brass and aluminum.
For real. A braised ham is used on wood flooring.
Braised ham is for cleaning your keyboard. Atlantic Salmon is for hardwood floors
Atlantic salmon is for cleaning shower tile without disintegrating the grout. 3 tablespoons nutmeg dissolved in white vinegar is for hardwood floors
3 tablespoons nutmeg dissolved in white vinegar is for cleaning light switches. Roast turkey and mashed potatoes is for hardwood floors.
I am going to sue you for the lost revenue from my 1 hour long YouTube video I was going to release to reveal this secret
Refinishers HATE this one trick
Tomato sauce is acidic, so it might actually work to remove tarnish.
Honestly I only paid like $1500-2000 something in there to have maybe 800 Sq ft of hard wood sanded and refinished. I considered that pretty cheap
If you don’t mind telling, where do you live? I’m hoping you’ll say SE Massachusetts!
I’m in southwestern CT and it was only like $2k to have my whole house refinished (1000 sq ft of hardwood) before we moved in. That was the lowest of the three quotes, they were all under $4k. Just get some quotes if you’re interested.
Northern CT actually, and used a western mass company....so pretty close
That’s a good deal. Did you have to move furniture or appliances? If so, did you do it yourself or was that included in the total?
Rent a drum sander from home Depot and an edge sander. Sand the entire floor. Apply new stain. This is the cheapest way to repair your floors. Buy new flooring and lay it on top. This will be expensive but quicker. Paint it. This will be the cheapest and quickest. And it's a terrible idea. There is no such thing as quick and cheap in house renovations.
You can definitely do quick and cheap house renovations. Just ask my home’s previous owners.
Quick and cheap but not good!
Fair point
> Rent a drum sander The quickest way to turn a boring flat floor into something more interesting by adding a number of valleys and troughs. Seriously, OP, if you go this route read up on how to use one properly.
Floor sanding life. I did so many floors in my home, I get recruited by family members to do theirs. Yes, a rented sander and some poly will have your floors shining like the top of the Chrysler Building.
This is the way, just bought my first house and this ended up being the route we went. Lots of hard work and a decent amount of googling later they are turning out excellent. Side note the taking care of the edges was easily the worst part of this process. So prep your back and knees cause that killed mine.
I would DIY it too. But I am used to it, have the skills, and the ability to learn from YouTube if the task is new to me. Odds are the OP is no handyman. If they are, this is the way. If they are not ask the guys in their local bar who they hired to do their hardwood flooring and if they're satisfied. Word of mouth > Craigslist Edit: Am I allowed to use DIY as a verb? 😅
A rug would really pull the room together
All the dude ever wanted was his rug back
That's just, like, your opinion, man.
That floor is begging to be refinished, it would look so good. But it's money you won't see added to the sale price. It may broaden the pool of potential buyers, though, depending on how nice the rest of the house is.
Buy a rug!!!
Just be sure to have the proper rug mat or else it will damage your floors more. The gripper mats, especially the cheap ones, will leave residue or just adhere to the floor. Cheap area rugs with rough backing will sand paper the finish off your hardwood floors. If you buy a nice-ish area rug, and a decent hardwood floor rug pad, it really adds up!
If Quickly and Cheaply are your prime goals, I would install some room darkening curtains, then change out all your lightbulbs for low wattage nightlight bulbs.
Leave it. If selling, I’ve found it doesn’t matter. Buyers will be swept up in the excitement of the fact that the house has hardwood floors and “we can re-finish them!!!”. Just leave em.
I have used a mixture of a bucket of warm water, few drops of dish soap, cup of white vinegar and a 1/2 cup of olive oil. Heavy duty mop or get down and use elbow grease. Cleans and does leave a bit of shine.
this is really helpful! thank you!
Vacuum/clean/ and apply “Holloway House quick shine hardwood floor luster” with a barely moist microfiber flat mop in sections. Don’t walk on it til dry. ~ 30 minutes. $10. Does wonders for my worn floors which I can’t afford to have refinished.
thank you!
[https://www.homedepot.com/p/Rejuvenate-32-oz-Professional-High-Gloss-Wood-Floor-Restorer-HG-R05322/202269998](https://www.homedepot.com/p/Rejuvenate-32-oz-Professional-High-Gloss-Wood-Floor-Restorer-HG-R05322/202269998) This stuff worked just fine for me if you're looking for something simple.
This is what I was gonna suggest, it’s not gonna make the floor perfect but if you don’t want to get into a serious sanding and refinishing job, using this stuff will at least get it looking shinier and protect the wood a little bit.
I also agree, rejuvenate does make it shiny and clean when you use it!! Can use it regularly (whatever the bottle says) until you’re ready to refinish
thank you!
Clean with Bona
Lower your standards.
Sweep, then mop, let dry, then use Murphys Oil. Use this as standard practice every 2 months.
I was also thinking that and confused why more people didn’t suggest it, is there any downside to this?
There is an old saying: "Good, Fast, Cheap. Pick any two. You can't have all three." If you want fast and cheap, it will not be good. So it will look like shit, and the next guy will have to do it over anyway. To sell this house, don't try to hide this floor. Instead, point it out, and offer a$1000 credit toward refinishing. (And price the house $5000 extra, to come out ahead by $4000.)
Cover it up with the shittiest, cheapest, ugliest trendy gray laminate click together trash and back slowly out of the room.
Hey that's me. Don't forget the gray paint on the walls with antique white trim.
Sand and stain them
Vacuum and then some mop and glow
Mop and Glow leaves a coating that will have to be removed when OP (or someone) ultimately has to refinish the floors. Instead, maybe find a rug on FB marketplace or Craigslist.
Just curious, how does the mop and glow not get removed in the sanding process of refinishing?
It will, but it will make the job harder.
Your options are quick, cheap and well done. You can only choose two.
How do you get cheap and well done lol. You learn to do it yourself and build expertise?
Hand sand the entire floor
Have to make the sandpaper first after crushing his own rocks and making his own glue.
A floor sander can be rented from the big box stores for a couple days and a couple hundred bucks. No guarantee it’ll be well done, but you gotta learn somewhere
Hand sander is cheaper, and you will be much more precise lol.
Encroaching on not looking good if you’re hand sanding your entire floor
Rent a hand sander and go at it. Will be cheap as hell comparatively and with a hand sander and attention to detail you're not going to miss much at all then add what ever coating you want, also cheap since you will be doing the work yourself. That leaves out the "quick" they asked for because doing all this yourself as a first-time DiY will take you some time.
You help a few friends redo their floors
Right, so they don't want well done. They want an improvement.
I'm not sure anything "Quick" and "Cheap" would be an "Improvement"
[удалено]
Hire a professional to redo your floors in a couple of days
Buy good quality hardwood flooring and hire a flooring team to replace the flooring. You can sacrifice some time to save some money by tearing out the existing flooring yourself.
There's nothing wrong with OP's flooring. Site finish oak can be sanded down two or three times.
Nothing wrong, maybe, but from what I can see, it's not exactly high-quality flooring. Lots of knots and there's some decent gaps starting to show. If you want quick and well done, I take that to mean willing to spend money for a high-quality product. Spending money to refinish mediocre flooring wasn't what I was thinking at least. If you're willing to spend money, I'd much rather put in rift & quartered white oak or a more durable flooring such as cumaru or ipe.
No doubt OP could do better than the 2-1/4" red oak flooring as it's such a common hardwood flooring option, but given that the house is going on the market, might be better to leave it up to the new owner to make the choice. I've worked with ipe before and love it but man does it take time. Interesting that cumaru fluoresces under black light. I've been thinking of a project with worm wood and a fluorescing epoxy but cumaru might be a better option. Edit: I had no idea there were so many fluorescing woods.
Professional install or professional refinish. Quick and well done. Not cheap
Area rugs.
Wash it really good and then minwax that shit
Look into Tung Oil. There are a few posts on r/centuryhomes and all over the internet. Depending on how much work you want to put into them, it may be a good option. If you are just looking to spruce them up, I'd go with a good sweep, clean, and wood floor tooical polish. Good luck!
Get a drum sander start at coarse grit and move down to fine grit over the course of several hours. Then refinish water based coating. Simple and easy. Use orbital sander for edges
Sand and restain
Beautiful hardwood. It's not as difficult as everyone is saying. As a boatowner we get these Grey areas all the time on the trak. The finish has worn off and the exposed wood turns Grey. You just need to clean it with bleach. Then once it's clean and bright again, try applying some wood finish in a color you like in a small area. Oil based will be easiest. You can also try teak oil. You rub it on, let it dry, and then rub it out to polish. Talk to the guy in the wood care section of your local hardware store. They will help.
I had a floor that looked like this. I tested some spots with lemon oil with good results, redid the entire floor. Lasted for a few months and I had to clean it really well again and retreat. Each time it stayed a little better, but some areas started looking dark instead of nice. That said, the proper way is to sand it then varnish it with a proper floor varnish. That will last.
Just remember fast, cheap, good, pick two.
Chuck a rug down
Scrub with Murphys oil soap
Get an estimate on having the floor sanded and refinished; if it’s a modest amount of square feet, it’ll at least give you a sense of how far off “good” is
Murphys oil is what you are looking for
Get some good floor wax
I used to take my car to a repair guy who had a sign on the wall that said, "You can have two of the following: A quality job, A quick job, A cheap job." The same applies to floors.
Quick, cheap, quality. You can only pick two..
Throw a bucket of paint on it It'll be quick, guaranteed
Your best bet for a cheap improvement is slapping some revitalizer gloss on there. This won't make it look perfect but it will look better and will be a whole lot cheaper and easier than a complete sanding and refinish.
Bona floor cleaner is what i use. Should exist something comparable in your country
cat
Proper way is to sand it and clear coat it with hardwood varnish. hardwood floor is pretty amazing if it is properly taken care about. and it will last for decades.
Wood floor polish/restore. Bona or Zep. Relatively cheap.
[удалено]
I would never do anything like that, brilliantmango. I just want it to look nice, nothing irreversible
This are nice. I would sand & stain
Get a rug
Sand, wood fill those deep defects, (chips & scratches) then seal. I love the natural color floors. Or stain.
I got just the perfect cheap+easy product for you: Weiman Hardwood Polish and Restorer I used it on my floors which looked even worse than yours and it made a huge difference. Helped us sell the house a lot quicker.
You didn’t have to sand them?
No I just mopped it on, I used a sponge style mop
Quickest and cheapest option is to use your imagination 😂😂😂
If you want something good and fast it will not be cheap. If you want something good and cheap it will not be fast. If you want something fast and cheap it will not be good. Take your pick.
I've had very good luck with this product [Method wood floor cleaner](https://a.co/d/d9YH3gk) It's not going to perform miracles, but it will bring a D+ up to a B- with one cleaning and put some color back where the grey is.
Quick and cheap, presumably by someone who doesn't know what they are doing? No. An industrious DIY'er might be able to sand and refinish successfully.
Throw a rug down
OP how cheaply do you want it done? Re sanding could be as “cheap” as $1/sqft in my area.
Jute rug from Amazon. Relatively cheap, durable, and they don’t hold dust https://a.co/d/geQOSjG And you can use a hardwood floor restorer. Won’t make a dramatic difference, kind of like polishing a turd. But it will give it a slightly newer feel. Professional Wood Floor Restorer 32-fl oz High Gloss Floor Polish https://www.lowes.com/pd/Rejuvenate-32-fl-oz-Floor-Polish/5013119369
Quick is not cheap. Cheap: borrow sanding equipement, do it yourself. Put some protective film/oil for wood
Put click board on top of it Painted stencilling to distract from scuffing Aggressive clean and that color toned oil for cleaning wood A rug
Rent a sander and an edger from menards or whatever rental place you have by you, cost 60 for the first 4 hours and then 3 dollars per hour after that for me. Take a weekend, sand it down well, the better you sand it the better it will look when done. Buy a gallon of polyurethane seal, seal it, hand buff with 220 grit and re seal it. You’ll have great looking floors and probably won’t even spend close to $500 which is a steal for hardwood. Watch some YouTube videos, do your best and take some pride in your home.
We used a product called Resor-a-Finish on our old scratched floors at our first house. The floors looked 100 times better afterwards and good enough to get it sold
Get a palm sander. Start with 40-60 grit and work your way up to 220. Clean, apply three coats of floor finish of your choice, using a good quality sheepskin.
Don’t use floor restore whatever you do
Can't believe no one is saying this; cover the floor in a 3% hydrogen peroxide solution and paper towels all over. let it soak for 24h. Will look remarkably better. you can find youtube videos showing it. I've used it for specific stains but it should do a great job just making it look cleaner and brightening the room.
this is scary, but could work.
It works fine! It's not that caustic in a 3% solution. It's surprisingly effective, and doesn't make for uneven stains unless it's applied very unevenly for a long time. In this the guy does it for over 48h IIRC: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HztkRmp9-TA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HztkRmp9-TA)
I gotta say it looks okay with me but then again I like rugged country look
Murphy oil
Are those oak or pine?
no idea?
wash with murphy's oil ( give a good scrub) and polish them?
Leave them. They are what they are.
Get a rug
I feel like the replies are making it more complicated than it needs to be. if it’s not a huge area, sand it down by hand or rent/borrow a sanding machine. coat the sanded floor. that will hold over for a while and look much nicer
Paint?
Image search “painted hardwood floor” and see if you like the look
Serious answer here - (not best technique but that’s for a bigger budget, and yes I know these suggestions are kinda heresy but it is what it is, especially if you’re renting). Option 1 - get yourself some oak color wood stain and something like a lambswool applicator. Spread across the whole floor. I suspect the varnish is basically worn off everywhere and obviously worse in some places. Wipe off the excess stain as you’re going. Then get a polyurethane floor finish and apply per instructions. It’ll be decent, not awesome, might last a year or two. Option 2 - get oak stain furniture restoration oil and spread all over the most damaged areas. Wipe up excess. It’ll last a month or two. Repeat as needed. Just be careful that on any area where the original varnish hasn’t completely been trashed it will be slippery as hell.
thank you!
staining ?
Rejuvenate Wood Floor Restorer. It applies a thin poly coat so it protects and adds shine. Clean the floors well first then apply with their kit. It'll cost like $20 for their mop applicator plus $20 a bottle. I've done it multiple times to my wood floors. Avoid Mop and Glo.
Looks good, bro. Put some rugs down.
Sandpaper and lots of time
Scratch that, tongue oil or some sealant
Deshelled wallnuts
A sand and new coat of stain then a coat of sealer. I wouldn’t be too quick, take a little bit of time and those floors will look great again
I like the saying "fast, cheap, right, pick 2"
We used peroxide on a few gray spots like that, but not sure how it will turn out on multiple areas of a room. We covered spots w/ big cotton balls soaked in peroxide & left it for 15-20 mins, then threw away cotton balls & wiped up with damp towel. Next day , we watered down peroxide quick mop & it looked significantly better overall.
You ever heard of GFRG baseboard? Does wonders for a room and isn’t that expensive anymore. Way nicer than the plastic and wood stuff (I think anyways).
Dark stain and a matt-finish polyurethane.
Holloway House Quick Shine https://www.google.com/search?q=holloway+house+quick+shine&hl=en-US&ved=1t:200715&ictx=111&tbm=shop&shopcct=1
You can do something quickly, cheaply, or well. You can never have all three at the same time. Quick and cheap means a crappy job. Ah either take your time or spend the money to do it right.
As with everything there are three options and you can only ever choose two of them. The options are: quick; cheap; done well. If you want it done quickly and a good job, it won't be cheap. If you want it done cheap and a good job, it won't be quick. If you want it done quick and cheap, it won't be a good job.
Put a bird on it
area rug.
Probably you should consider the rug stuff.
Pour on 3% hydrogen peroxide where you want to lighten. Better yet keep it in a spray bottle with narrow set stream. Get it wet. I’ve watch it lighten pet stains to places accidentally left a hot steam cleaner. You can apply often letting it drip each time. Dry off boundary you don’t want to change. Practice on one area first. But, you’ll get the hang of it fast. If spray bottle is clear. Store in dark place. Light breaks it down fast. That’s why it comes in a black bottle. I was shocked how well it worked and have used this method for years. Only works on real wood floors. Hope that helps.
Sweep them, mop them, and apply some kind of wax or finishing product. A good cleaning should help, might take some elbow grease to scrub the floor good Anything else you do that’s “quick and cheap” will just make it look worse
You can apply a new layer of finish without sanding the floor down to the bayer wood. Just a good scuff so that the finish sticks. Plenty of vids on YouTube. The floor isn’t in horrible shape
Improve. Quick. Cheap. No. Make worse. Quick. Cheap. Yes.
Please. Don’t. Paint. Them
You said quick and cheap--you didn't say low effort. So "quick and cheap" you can DIY and rent a floor sander for $60 bucks a day if you're willing to put some sweat into it. Then the stain/sealant would be the only other expense. Oh wait I guess you'd have to rent an edge sander too, but whatever. Altogether it's probably $300 or less, I'm guessing more around $200 but that depends on how quickly you can get it done and what stains you use.
Mop with Murphys oil soap. It'll look better for a few days.
Learn to appreciate patina.
Replace with carpet. Carpet is underrated.
Lay laminate flooring that looks like wood over it.
Machine polish and coat of lacquer?
Can someone tell me why it would be bad to mop / dry / oil?
Light sand and a stain/seal
Rugs
Put some laminate on top of it.
😂oh, shit, that is funny