Your refinishing date is booked. Now what? Good preparation is the difference between a job that runs smoothly and one that loses half a day before the first machine starts. None of it is complicated — it's mostly moving things and deciding things ahead of time. Here's the briefing we'd give you standing in your front hall.
Before the Crew Arrives
Clear the furniture out
Every room being refinished needs to be completely empty — sofas, beds, dressers, dining tables, the lot. There's no sanding around a piece of furniture and having the floor come out even.
- Move furniture to rooms that aren't being done, the garage, or a basement if you have the space. If the whole main floor is being refinished, a storage unit for a few days is often the easiest answer
- Got a piano or something else you genuinely can't shift? Talk to us in advance. Some pieces we can help with if it's arranged ahead of time — but it has to be part of the plan, not a surprise on day one
Take everything off the floor
Furniture is the obvious part. It's the small stuff that gets missed:
- Area rugs and runners, plus the underlay beneath them
- Floor lamps, plant stands and potted plants
- Pet bowls, crates, litter boxes and beds
- Kids' toys, bins and play mats
- Boxes, shoes and anything on closet floors — if closets are part of the job, empty them right to the back wall
Clear the walls and the shelves
This is the step homeowners skip, and it's the one that costs them something. Sanding vibration travels through the structure and into the walls: framed pictures shift on their hooks, mirrors walk sideways, and anything perched on a shelf can move.
- Take down wall hangings, artwork and mirrors in the rooms being done and in rooms directly adjacent
- Clear open shelving of anything breakable
- Empty the bottom of built-ins, china cabinets and bookcases staying in the room — even if the unit doesn't move, the contents should
- Take curtains down, or tie them well clear of the floor
Leave the baseboards alone
One thing you can cross off entirely: baseboards stay on. The edger sands right up to them, so there's no prying and no paint touch-ups afterward — more on that in our walkthrough of the sanding process.
Doors, Vents and Access
- Interior doors may need to come off their hinges so machines can pass and the floor under the swing gets finished. We'll handle it — just know it's normal
- Floor vents and registers get lifted out during sanding and finishing, then go back at the end
- A clear path in. Sanders are heavy — keep the route from the door to the work area open, and leave a corner where we can stage abrasives, cans and cords
- Parking. In older neighbourhoods like the Glebe, Hintonburg and Sandy Hill, parking is the real bottleneck. If your street is tight or permit-only, sorting out a spot near the door ahead of time saves everyone a scramble
- Winter jobs. In the cold months, please have the walkway and driveway cleared — and keep salt off the path we're carrying gear over, since salt tracked indoors is the last thing a bare sanded floor needs
Pets and People
Sanding is loud. Not "background noise" loud — machines running for hours at a stretch, straight through your floor structure. Plan for it:
- Dogs and cats are much happier somewhere else for the sanding days
- If you work from home, arrange somewhere else to be during the noisiest stages. Video calls are not happening over an edger
As for living in the house: we use water-based finish, so odour is low, and most families can usually stay put while we stage the work to keep them access to bedrooms, a bathroom and the kitchen. Whether that works in your home depends on the layout and how much we're doing at once — an open-concept main floor is a different situation from three upstairs bedrooms. Raise it at the free assessment and we'll be straight with you.
About Dust — Honestly
Our sanders run with dust collection, we contain the work zone, and we clean as we go. That handles the vast majority of it. But no sanding job is literally dust-free, and anyone who says otherwise is selling something. Fine dust settles on ledges, trim and light fixtures, so expect to wipe surfaces down afterward.
What genuinely helps:
- Close the doors to rooms not being worked on, and keep them closed
- Shut off or cover HVAC returns in the work zone so the system isn't moving dust through the house
- Put away or cover anything with a lot of exposed surface area
While the Job Is Running
- Stay off the floor when we say so — and that includes pets. Paw prints set into fresh finish are one of the most common problems on a refinish, and the fix is sanding that area back and recoating it
- Be available for colour decisions. We sample tinted sealers and stains directly on your sanded floor, because the same product looks different on every floor. Someone needs to be there to see the samples in your own light and make the call — it's quick, but it can't be done by text
After the Finish Goes On
This is where a beautiful job gets protected — or marked up in the first week.
- Socks only at first. No shoes, no pet claws. Water-based finish is dry enough to walk on in hours, but "dry" is not "tough" yet
- Furniture goes back when we say it's ready, not when the floor looks dry
- Felt pads on every leg — chair, table, sofa, bed frame — before anything comes back in
- Lift, never drag. Two people lifting beats one person shoving, every time
- Area rugs go back last, after full cure. A rug laid down early can trap solvent underneath and leave a permanent mark in the shape of the rug
Dry versus cured — the distinction that matters
Water-based finish is dry to walk on within hours. Curing is different: it's the finish reaching full hardness, and that takes roughly a week. During the cure window, go light — no heavy items, no rugs, no wet cleaning. We'll give you the timing for your floor before we leave.
Looking After It Long-Term
- Sweep or vacuum regularly, with the vacuum on its hard-floor setting so the beater bar isn't spinning on the finish
- Damp mop only, with a cleaner suited to your finish. Never a soaking wet mop, and never a steam mop — steam drives moisture into the seams between boards
- Wipe spills as they happen rather than later
- Mats at every entry, inside and out. Ottawa's winter salt and road grit are genuinely hard on floor finishes — grit is abrasive underfoot and salt leaves a residue that dulls a finish if it sits. Catching it at the door is the cheapest floor maintenance there is
Do that much and a refinished floor will look right for years. See finished results in our gallery, and the full range of what we do on our services page.