Floor Sanding in Portobello, Willenhall

A lot of Portobello houses still have their original pine floorboards under the carpet, and once they are sanded and finished they are often the best-looking floor the house could have. The surprise, when the carpet comes up, is usually how good they are underneath the paint and staining.

The boards are checked first. Loose ones are screwed down, protruding nails punched below the surface so the sander does not catch them, and any split or rotten boards replaced with reclaimed timber that matches. In a Portobello terrace it is common to find one or two boards that were cut for pipes or cables and never fixed properly.

Sanding is done in stages, coarse to fine, with the edges done separately so the finish is even right up to the skirting. Dust extraction keeps the mess down. Gaps between boards can be filled with slivers of timber or left open for a more traditional look.

The finish is your choice: a hard-wax oil that looks natural and is easy to touch up, or a lacquer that is harder-wearing in busy rooms and hallways.

Sanding also shows up the history of a Portobello house. Old heating pipe routes, the outline of a fireplace hearth, and patched sections from past repairs all appear once the boards are bare. Some owners like that character and keep it; others prefer the boards matched and blended. Either way, it is worth deciding together once the first pass is done, because at that point the true state of the floor is clear and nothing has been committed. A floor that bounces, boards that creak and shift, or damp coming up through a solid floor are worth sorting before anything new goes down.