I'm looking for opinions and suggestions. I have a house built in 1960. We are uncovering hardwood floors through the whole place that have been under wall-to-wall carpeting for quite some time. The floors clean up nicely and are generally in good shape, but the finish is about gone. I don't believe urethanes were beginning to be used until somewhere in the mid 60s so I *think* this flooring is probably finished with varnish or shellac. In closets, where it has been protected more, the finish is still there. In the rooms it's hard to tell if there's any finish left at all. The wood appears to be oak. I'll measure the width when I get home but I'd say it's 1-1/2 to 2 inch wide at most.
Here's where I'm going.... I can't move out to have the floors refinished. I just can't. I would PREFER not to have to sand the floors down and start over. And here's the part some of you might find odd... I would PREFER to wax the floors. I've recently been (in the last 2 years up to now) in several older homes where the floors were oiled and then waxed. They look beautiful and more than one of these homes is over 100 years old. There's a lot to be said for the wax finishes.
I'm thinking about using Fiddes Hard Wax Oil. It dries in 4 to 6 hours. It's oil and wax combined. Oil penetrates and wax stays on top to protect. once that's on I can just wax when needed to freshen it up. I have a floor buffer to make rewaxing easier. I know it involves rewaxing every couple months when new but I also know from speaking to the owners of those homes that as long as you don't OVERwax.... which then requires stripping... the floors become "conditioned" and now they only rewax once a year or once every 2 years with some spot refreshes in high traffic areas.
So.... do you think I can do this without sanding the floors down and starting from scratch? If I put a drop of water on the floor (not in a closet), it doesn't stay beaded for more than a minute before I see it starting to soak into the wood. In a closet it lasts about 5 minutes. If I put isopropyl alcohol on the floor in the closet, it forms a white ring but doesn't get sticky or start to strip the finish.
I would LOVE it if I only needed to sand out the closets a bit and then could wipe the floors down with white spirit and then apply the hard wax oil.
thoughts?