How Long Does Floor Refinishing Take? Living at Home During It

Most people expect the sanding to be the long part of a hardwood refinish. It usually isn't. Sanding is loud and dusty, but it moves at a steady pace. The schedule is set by everything that comes after: stain drying, each coat of finish drying before the next one goes on, and then a cure that keeps going for days after the floor feels dry.

This article walks through that sequence and what makes each step take longer or shorter. It also covers when you can walk on the floor, put furniture back, put rugs down and let the dog back in, and how to live in the house while the work is going on. If you are still deciding whether your floor needs a full sand at all, start with our guide to refinishing vs. replacing and the comparison of a screen-and-recoat vs. a full refinish. A recoat skips most of the steps below.

The Sequence, Step by Step

A full sand-and-finish follows the same order every time, and the order matters more than how fast any one step goes.

First, the rooms are cleared. Everything comes off the floor: furniture, rugs, floor lamps, plants, and anything stored in closets that open onto the work area. Doors may come off their hinges so the sander can get to the threshold. This is the step homeowners control, and when it is done before the crew arrives, sanding can start right away.

Next come the sanding passes. The field is sanded with a big machine and the edges with an edger, starting at a coarse grit and stepping up through finer ones. Corners, stair returns and spots under radiators are scraped or detailed by hand. Then the floor is vacuumed and tacked, because whatever dust is left gets sealed under the first coat. For scheduling, what matters is that sanding is mostly labor, so it scales with square footage and the condition of the floor.

Stain comes next if you are changing color. It adds a separate drying step, and that step can be long. Water-popping the wood for deeper color, using two coats of stain, or putting an oil-modified stain under a waterborne finish all push back the moment the first coat of finish can go on.

Then the sealer and finish coats. Most systems use a sealer or first coat, a light abrasion between coats so the next one bonds, and two or more topcoats. Each coat has to dry before the next one, and the finish maker's data sheet says how long. Writing for the NWFA's Hardwood Floors magazine, a finish chemist notes that most manufacturers recommend no more than two waterborne coats in one day, because each coat slows the escape of solvent and the cure of the coats underneath.

Last comes the difference between dry and cured. When the last coat is dry to the touch, you can walk on the floor carefully. The finish isn't done, though. It keeps hardening for days. Drying is solvent or water leaving the film. Curing is the film reaching its full hardness and chemical resistance. Most of the damage done to new floors happens when a dry floor gets treated as if it were already cured.

What Actually Drives the Number of Days

Finish chemistry is the biggest factor. The NWFA describes water-based finishes as normally clear, very durable and quick to dry. It describes oil-based finishes as amber and very durable, and moisture-cured finishes as extremely durable and more moisture-resistant than other surface finishes. Waterborne finishes give the shortest schedule between coats. Oil-modified finishes dry more slowly and smell stronger and longer. With a moisture-cured finish, read the maker's data sheet on occupancy before planning to stay in the house while it goes on. A floor that gets an oil-modified stain and then a waterborne topcoat can sit idle while the stain finishes drying. The trade-offs are laid out in our comparison of water-based vs. oil-based polyurethane.

Stain and prep come next. The same chemist lists the conditions that stretch the recoat time of oil-modified stain on raw wood: water-popping, especially before the water has fully evaporated, double-staining, and a substrate colder than the air. In a closed, heated room, he writes, it may be days before an oil-based stain or sealer is ready for a waterborne coat. Applying an oil-based sealer too heavily can add as much as an extra day or two.

The number of coats and how thick they go on matter too. Every extra coat adds another drying interval. Coats put on heavier than the recommended spread rate dry more slowly. Low spots in an uneven floor collect extra finish, and the slowest-drying spot decides when the whole floor can take the next coat.

Temperature, humidity and airflow are next. This is the factor homeowners can help with most. The NWFA's guidelines define normal living conditions for wood floors as 30 to 50 percent relative humidity and 60 to 80°F. A Hardwood Floors technical article points out that many finish makers say their products perform best in about the same range. The same article lists what slows drying: application too heavy, humidity too high, temperature too low, poor airflow, and coating over a coat that isn't dry. Spring and fall are the risky seasons. The heat and air conditioning run less, so a closed-up house holds more moisture.

So does how much of the house is being finished. The same article notes that a 200-square-foot floor in a 2,000-square-foot home dries under better conditions than an 1,800-square-foot floor in the same home. More finish puts more moisture and solvent into the same air. That vapor settles near the floor and can nearly stop the drying until it is exhausted, ideally with fans in the windows blowing out once the finish has skinned over. A whole-house refinish takes longer per coat than one room for this reason alone.

When You Can Walk on It, Move Furniture Back, and Put Rugs Down

Every finish system has its own numbers, and the data sheet for the product on your floor is the authority. The NWFA's published guidance does set some outer limits worth knowing.

Walking comes first. Light foot traffic, in socks and with no dragging, is allowed once the last coat is dry to the touch and the data sheet's light-traffic time has passed. Shoes, especially gritty ones, wait longer. Early foot traffic on an uncured finish is one of the scuffing causes listed in NWFA's technical publication on floor problems.

Furniture is next. Light furniture can come back once the data sheet allows normal use. Lift pieces into place. Don't slide them. The NWFA's maintenance guidance says to put fabric-faced glides under furniture legs and never slide heavy furniture across a wood floor. For refrigerators, ranges and other appliances, the guidelines say that on newly finished floors you should wait a minimum of three days and use safety glides.

Rugs wait the longest. The NWFA guidelines say that unless the finish manufacturer says otherwise, area rugs should not go on a newly finished floor for a minimum of seven days after the final coat. Covering the finish too early is a recognized cause of problems. NWFA's discussion of finish performance includes rugs and rug pads placed over uncured finish, which can leave stains, blushing or impressions. Some non-slip pads can print their pattern into the finish even after it has cured. The same goes for cardboard or paper laid down as protection before the finish has fully cured.

Keep pets out until the floor is ready for furniture, and ideally until it is close to cured. Paws carry grit, and a dog turning a corner is about the hardest test an uncured finish faces. Trim claws before they come back, which the NWFA recommends as standard care. If your floor is mostly a scratch-and-traffic problem, our guide to hardwood floor care covers the routine that keeps the new finish looking new.

Living at Home During a Refinish

Plenty of families stay home through a refinish. How easy it is depends on the finish, the floor plan, and whether the work cuts off the kitchen, the bathrooms or the only staircase.

Start with ventilation. The EPA lists paints, varnishes and wax among household products that contain organic solvents. It reports that levels of several organic compounds average 2 to 5 times higher indoors than outdoors. During certain activities such as paint stripping, and for several hours after, levels may be 1,000 times outdoor background levels. The EPA's first step to reduce exposure is to increase ventilation when using products that emit VOCs. It also notes that most home forced-air heating and cooling systems do not bring in fresh air, so opening windows and running exhaust fans is what actually moves air out. Ventilation helps the finish too. The Hardwood Floors articles cited here say that swapping old air for new air is the best way to speed drying. Talk with your contractor about the plan before coating day. Fans blowing out of the windows usually go in only after the finish has skinned over, so dust doesn't blow onto wet finish. If anyone in the house is pregnant, very young, elderly, or has asthma or another lung condition, consider staying elsewhere on coating days, whichever finish is used.

Dust containment comes next. Modern sanders with good vacuum collection capture most of the dust. Fine dust still travels, though. Plan on plastic sheeting over doorways into finished rooms, closed and covered HVAC returns in the work area, and the system shut off during heavy sanding so it doesn't pull dust into the ducts and spread it through the house. Soft goods like curtains and upholstered pieces near the work area should be moved out or covered.

Homes built before 1978 need one more step, because lead is a real issue on older floors. The EPA says about three-quarters of U.S. homes built before 1978 still contain some lead-based paint. Its Renovation, Repair and Painting (RRP) Rule requires that anyone paid to do work that disturbs painted surfaces in pre-1978 homes be certified and trained in lead-safe work practices. The NWFA's guidelines apply this directly to floors: in a pre-1978 home, test for lead if more than 6 square feet of any painted surface will be disturbed (baseboards count), and also test when you don't know what finish is on the floor, because some wood floor finishes made before 1978 contained lead. If lead is found, the EPA's Renovate Right pamphlet says the work area must be contained with plastic and tape. Floors that won't be worked on and immovable furniture get covered, doors and HVAC vents get sealed, and power sanding is allowed only with a shroud and HEPA vacuum attachment. The pamphlet says to keep occupants out of the work area, find a safe place for pets, which can be poisoned by lead and track its dust through the house, and shut off forced-air heating and cooling during the work. For a lot of Sacramento-area bungalows and older foothill homes, that is reason enough to plan on staying elsewhere for the sanding days.

Then decide which rooms to stage, and in what order. Before anything starts, decide where the family will sleep, eat, bathe and get in and out. A floor finished in sections lets you keep living in the house, but every section adds its own sanding, coating and drying cycle, so splitting the job makes it longer overall. A few practical rules help.

Finish bedrooms while everyone sleeps in another part of the house, or plan a few nights away.

Hallways and stair landings that connect everything go last in their section, or on a day when you can be away. The NWFA notes that on site-finished floors you can't walk on the floor during drying, and a finished hallway can cut off the bathroom. Stairs have their own sequence. See our stair runners and treads service.

Keep an exit that doesn't cross wet finish, and keep a path for the crew that, ideally, isn't your family's main door, as the EPA suggests for lead-safe jobs.

Set up a temporary kitchen, even just a coffee maker and a microwave, in a room that isn't being finished. Kitchens that open onto the work area often get closed off on coating days.

For a fuller checklist of what to move, where to put it and how to protect what stays, see our article on preparing your home for a flooring project.

Why Rushing Shows Up Later

The Hardwood Floors article on seasonal drying says the number-one reason finish companies get technical calls is a contractor rushing the job. Two examples it gives are coating over a product that wasn't dry and letting the home go back to full use before the finish fully cured. The symptoms usually show up weeks later: a cloudy or hazy finish, scuffing in traffic lanes, rug-pad patterns printed into the surface, or early finish wear that makes a new floor look old. A careful schedule costs a few extra days. Fixing a rushed one often costs a resand.

Getting a Realistic Schedule for Your Floor

A trustworthy schedule is built from the actual finish system, the number of coats, whether there is stain, the square footage, and the conditions the house will hold that week. When a contractor gives you a day count without asking about any of those, it's a guess. Ask which product is going down, what its data sheet says about recoat, light traffic, furniture and rugs, and whether your home's age means a lead test comes first.

Renaissance Floors is a licensed C-15 flooring contractor (CSLB #1060673) based in Roseville, providing hardwood floor refinishing across Greater Sacramento and Northern California. Call (916) 749-0272 or contact us, and we'll look at your floor, explain the finish options, and lay out a day-by-day plan that tells you which rooms you'll lose and when you'll get them back.