What's the best way to find someone to refinish hardwood floors?

Find out what the laws are in your area. In mine, one does not need a special license in order to refinish hardwood flooring.

If you go the handyman route, make sure to move all your furniture and valuable belongings yourself, as they might not be insured. You can search for people on Craigslist or in your local news rag. Better yet, ask around. Find someone who knows someone who just had their floors done. At least then you can see their work before you hire them. Anyone can steal pictures off the Internet and claim it as their work.

Most sand and finish work is done by the square foot, and the price will depend on the existing finish, the type of wood and what finish you want to use. My husband charges generally $2.00 to $2.50 a square foot for a refinishing job without a whole lot of major repair work involved. Historical homes, that have varnish that needs to be hand-scraped because of top-nailing, will cost more. Most people also have a “minimum” they’re going to charge to come out, so even if the rooms are pretty small, my hubby charges no less than $1000 to $1200 to come out.

In most cases, it’s a three-day process. Day one, stripping off the existing finish and doing any filling or repair work. Day two, first coat, day three, probably two coats to make it nice and smooth. It can take longer if it’s humid outside (polyurethane finish) or not humid enough (moisture-cured xylene), the wood’s in particularly poor condition or needs board replacements, or of the three rooms get in the way of each other (the job might have to be done in phases).

Please feel free to ask any other questions.

When we redid the wood floors at my Mom’s house, the workers were recommended by the real estate agent. He had worked often with these guys, and knew they would do a great job, and he was right!

Try looking on Angie’s List to find a small contractor.

@filmfann has a great idea to ask the real estate agent. Also, ask around when you go somewhere. At the bank, I constantly have customers asking me for a recommendation for things like contractors. Many of the cheaper ones are small businesses you may not find in the phone book, but most of them have business bank accounts.

My husband used to work in hardwood flooring and they charged per square foot. So, it would depend on what you consider a “small room.”

The BEST way? Talk to someone who has had it done in your area and ask who they used and how they like it.
Chances are that most of the houses in you neighborhood were built about the same time and some of your neighbors have already done it.
Doing it yourself involves renting a barrel sander and if you don’t know what you’re doing you can end up with a wavy floor.
All this is assuming that you have an old floor before laminate and engineered floors. Anything built or installed in the last 20 or so years has a high chance of not being sandable. They still make solid wood flooring but its way more expensive.

^We did the same @Judi is suggesting for our current home. We have a distant relative in our area that was redoing her floors around the same time we were ready to take bids.

We’ve found word of mouth has been the best way to shop for the best contractors.

I just asked my husband about this and he said they charged $1.25 per square foot for a natural finish. The darker you go, the more expensive it would be. This is just labor (sanding and finishing) and does not include the cost of stain, poly, and sealer. They had the best prices in town, so I’d add a bit to that to see what cost to expect.

I wouldn’t be so quick to assume newer flooring is laminate or pre finished. Plenty of people still get real hardwood floors. You can even sand and refinish certain types of pre finished wood, depending on the width of the wood and whether it is glued or nailed down. Real wood is a bit more expensive, but it’s still the best kind. It’s more durable and aesthetically pleasing.

In contrast, the price I quoted includes materials. I’ve never heard of charging more based on colour of stain, though adding strain will add to the cost, a well as one to several days to the job timeline

@Seek_Kolinahr The darker the stain, the easier flaws show, the more stain needed to make it look good, the more time it’ll take to complete it, the more money it’ll cost.

And there’s nothing wrong with offering an additional quote for the OP to compare.

I never said there was. I was simply clarifying my above example to include information from yours.