Many people who haven’t ever had their hardwood floors refinished don’t realize that there are many steps that go into properly refinishing the floors. To someone who isn’t familiar with the process, it would seem that the floors would just need one sanding and a coat of finish. Any good hardwood flooring contractor will tell you that to properly refinish your floors and achieve a lasting result, there are many steps involved. Besides multiple sandings, buffing and coats of finish there is also the very important step of applying a filler to your floors.

The purpose of the filler is to fill in any small holes or cracks in your hardwoods creating a more smooth and cohesive feel and look. Without the filler every nail hole and/or small space between the wood boards would be more visible.

A lot of Seattle area homes have the original hardwood flooring that was installed when the home was built.  For many of these homes this means a top nail floor.  Top nail is exactly as it sounds.  The boards are installed by nailing them down from the top.  Each board generally has around four nails to secure it to the subfloor.  When refinishing top nail hardwoods, Artur starts by resetting each nail into the floor.  Applying filler to these floors is especially important and useful as it covers and smooths out the irregular surface.

See below for photos of Artur applying the filler.