Stripping paint from white painted floorboards (img included)

knightstyle

Make sure the boards are dry before sanding, allow a few days between washing after stripping and sanding. Plus check for nails sticking up, hammer them down before sanding.

proformance

Jeepers_Creepers said:

proformance said:

Thank lovely people. Doesn't sound too difficult for once.

Any estimations on how long this could take a novice? 

You'll have the floor sanded in a day. But it'll be a tiring one - the machines are noisy and awkward. Very satisfying, tho'...

You'll then spend a few days applying whatever finish you've chosen. That's the important part - make sure you know what finish you want - do your research.

Personally I wouldn't bother trying to remove the paint beforehand - that'll be a horrible and messy job. Instead, make sure you get lots of spare sanding sheets with your roller sander, and include quite a few coarsest '80' grit in there (do they even do '60'?!). That'll make short-shrift of flattening the floor and removing the paint. (You then move to progressively finer sheets - I have personally never gone daft on this, and usually jump from 80 grit to 120 (I think) as 'perfection' doesn't really apply to a bare floor imo.

You start with the coarse stuff, but ease off the pressure/weight from the roller to begin with (by gently pulling the handle down to 'lift' some weight off the roller), so the 80 grit just lightly starts to strip the paint. If you do this first bit slowly, then the paint should be turned into dust and not melt, and it'll also get mixed up with the sawdust being produced, so will be far less likely to clog up the grit paper.

Basically, you try and see what works. It could even be that the paint layer is thin and fully hard, so won't even try and clog your paper - you might be able to get stuck right in!

Your boards look nicely tight - very lucky. If there's a visible gap between it and the skirting boards where there's a draught coming through, seal this up with summat - some folk push in a foam strip, others use decorator's caulk/ frame sealant.

If there's any draught coming through the T&G grooves, you may need to run frame sealant or similar in there.

This is some seriously, seriously community-gold type of content! You should publish this!
You've given me the confidence to do it now! Already contacted a few hire plant firms.

Jeepers_Creepers

Now I'm scared :-(