Steph and I were excited to find hardwood floor under the carpets in a couple of bedrooms. We had an estimate for someone to come out and refinish them. The price seemed reasonable, but as the summer progressed we grew in confidence or perhaps insanity. I did a little research and found out we could rent an orbital sander (much less intimidating than a drum sander) from RSC. If you ever decide to take this project on I recommend you start with 20 grit we needed the extra umph for the hard oak floors. Here are some pictures of the process.
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The correct procedure is to sand the room with the roughest grit paper and move toward a fine grit. We estimated this could be done in a day but it took a full 28 hours. The guys at RSC were kind and left it as a day rental. We could have had it done in about twelve hours if I had started with the right grit of paper. I used my little hand sander around the edges, but to do it over again I would rent an actual edge sander. The edge sander is heavier and that means my arms would be less tired. The sanding was no where near as dusty or hard as it was portrayed by so many online.