# Forum Home Renovation Flooring  Help in removing vinyl and masonite to sand n finish floorboards underneath

## Cloudy

I am looking to rip up 30m² of vinyl in the kitchen and hall to uncover the Jarrah boards underneath. The Perth house was built in the 1960s. 
The vinyl is glued down to masonite. The masonite is nailed down to the jarrah boards. 
I've asked around about this but specific answers have been vague so I'm hoping this forum can help in accurately indicating the steps I need to take to get this job done.  
What I really need help in: what type of putty do I fill the nail holes with?what type of sander do I need, andhow many levels of coarseness is required?what type of coating and finishing to use (brands and amounts)?a very rough cost and can I get it all at Bunnings?... advice, tips and problems you envisage   *Photos*
Pulled up area of vinyl exposing masonite: http://i686.photobucket.com/albums/v...7/SDC10190.jpg
View of the boards from underneath the house: http://i686.photobucket.com/albums/v...7/SDC10191.jpg 
I grew up in this house and I am really excited about making it look presentable for the family and learning lots along the way.

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## Larry McCully

Hi cloudy, well you have a job in front of you. First its best to understand how the layers are fixed to your floor. The masonite is tacked down useing a small flathead nail 15mm long or a staple. There are quite a few nails used. A sheet of hardboard is 600 x 900. See attached diagram for the nail or staple spacings.  
Pulling the masonite up is easy. First use a stanly knife to cut strips into the vinyl. This helps it to peel away from the masonite as you are pulling it up. You are going to pull the masonite and the vinyl up together. The staples or nails will pull through and stay fastened to your floor. Best thing to do is to buy a set of thick knee protectors. You will be kneeling down and using a small flat pry, lever the masonite of the floor. It will fragment and break up into reasonable size chunks. Try not bend or flatten any staples or nails. You then need to buy a tool callee a "Extractor" They cost about $40 from thriftylink or mitre 10 hardware or a tool supplier.  
This tool will take all the hard work out of pulling the staples out. You can use a pair of pliers or multigrips and a screwdriver if you want, But after a couple of hours of trying to pull them out, you will change your mind.  :Doh: 
You need to remove every single staple or nail. If you break a staple or a nail and you cant get the leg out, use a 2.5mm nail punch to punch the broken bit into the floor. Keep the punch handy as you travel through the floor and punch down as needed as you go along. Its better to do it then and there rather than go back and look for them. use a vacumm to clear the extracted staples of the floor, so you can see a clear path. It will take you about a day to clear 50m2 or more, The best thing to do is just except the fact that you will be down on your knees for a while and once you start, it will soon be over. Take your time and dont rush, This process is important if you want a easy quality sanding finish at the end. I prefer that you get a proffesional sander in to do a sand only , and you do the coating. That will save you some money. Those little hire machines are a handfull to use and they dont do a good job at all. I am a proffesional floorsander and i wont go near them at all. They are to light and the are hard to get a quality finish. Sand only jobs cost about $12-$15 per sq mt. They are worth the money. You will regret the outcome if you attempt to sand it yourself. By the time you spend the money in hiring and trying to fiqure out the paper to use and then buying it, also the paper that is sold for hire machines is not a quality paper, and it will wear out very fast. The paper that a pro uses is usually circonia paper and is very high quality and does the job much faster and better. If you get a pro in to sand only, he will get it to the stage where all you got to do is coat it yourself. Go tpo a floorsanding supply company and purchase your coating gear from there. All you need is a roller, coating bucket, cutting in brush and a pole. Select the finish you want and follow the advise givin by the supplier. They will help you with any information you need, Or jump bac on to this site and ask the question.

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## amiaow

1. I use Timbermate- you can buy it at the Bunnings in the fillers aisle and it comes in all sorts of colours to match your floorboards. Look for a white bucket with a red lid. 2. I hired the drum sander and edger from Bunnings- $99/day plus consumables (paper about $8 a pop from memory). They will refund what you don't use. 3. This really depends on the condition that the boards are in... funnily enough, Bunnings have a downloadable fact sheet about sanding floorboards that will help to answer this question! Our boards were good so I used 80 and then 120 grit. 4. Depends on what you're after- there are many options- tung oil, oil based coatings, water based coatings... I used 4 coats of Cabots CFP water-based polyurethane in satin finish on our cypress pine floors and I'm happy, but many people prefer gloss. I liked the water-based for ease of clean up and no smell. A 4L bucket will do your kitchen no worries. 5. I think I have answered in the above and yes you can get it all at Bunnings 6. Sanding and finishing the floor is hard work! Allow yourself enough time because there is nothing worse than being rushed. Also remember that you're not going to be able to put the furniture back for a few days so make plans in case your family go bonkers  :Smilie:

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## goldie1

An easy way to get old masonite and vinyl up is a garden spade. Get an exposed edge like a door way and 
get the spade under the masonite Cut through the vinyl with a stanly knife close to the masonite sheet joins and take the  
vinyl and masonite up in one piece. Old flooring masonite was in 1200x 900 sheets. Some of the staples might 
come up with the masonite but most will stay in the floor.

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## Cloudy

I'm blown away with the detailed responses, cheers.    
OK first thing first, from Larry's suggestion, I'll try pricing a pro to do the sanding.  
   So far the quotes have been high. $35m2 and up. One bloke didn't give me a sanding only quote. He quoted $42m2 which includes sanding AND waterbase coating.  
Is this an average quote? I haven't priced the cost of the finishing alone yet.   
Another guy quoted me the same suggesting its tricky if I do the coating... something about timing with waterbase coatings. So its going to be $1000 minimum to have a pro do the sanding and polishing. Not toooo bad until I weigh it up against doing it myself which I am guessing around $300.  
  Most people, even the ones who can't do the job, suggest I don't sand it myself. Some suggest the kitchen area will be especially tricky as the fixed cupboards jut out at the bottom so the sander can't get under.

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## Larry McCully

Hi Goldie, I tend not to use a spade, and i prefer to to the down on knees thing with a flat bar. The reason is that we found that the staples flatten over and two things happen.  (1) It is double handeling having to straighten them to try and pull them out and (2) When they are straightenen, the leg of the stable is weakened and tends to break of a lot. Its a real bugger having to sand over a staple leg. Its the end result of the sanding we are more concerned about, and the ease of the whole proceedure. Some floor sanders grind them off with a course grit on the machine, thats a dumb stupid way of trying to short cut the process. pulling the staples might take a little longer, but it is very effective during the extraction process as well as achieving a fine sanding result.  

> An easy way to get old masonite and vinyl up is a garden spade. Get an exposed edge like a door way and 
> get the spade under the masonite Cut through the vinyl with a stanly knife close to the masonite sheet joins and take the  
> vinyl and masonite up in one piece. Old flooring masonite was in 1200x 900 sheets. Some of the staples might 
> come up with the masonite but most will stay in the floor.

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## Larry McCully

I agree, its the best way   

> Cut through the vinyl with a stanly knife close to the masonite sheet joins and take the  
> vinyl and masonite up in one piece. .

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## goldie1

> Hi Goldie, I tend not to use a spade, and i prefer to to the down on knees thing with a flat bar. The reason is that we found that the staples flatten over and two things happen. (1) It is double handeling having to straighten them to try and pull them out and (2) When they are straightenen, the leg of the stable is weakened and tends to break of a lot. Its a real bugger having to sand over a staple leg. Its the end result of the sanding we are more concerned about, and the ease of the whole proceedure. Some floor sanders grind them off with a course grit on the machine, thats a dumb stupid way of trying to short cut the process. pulling the staples might take a little longer, but it is very effective during the extraction process as well as achieving a fine sanding result.

  Point taken . Back in the day when I was taking up masonite timber floors where out of fashion and the staples just  
stayed in the floor and got covered up by some thing else. Amazing how tastes change. Late 60s 70s and early 80s  floor sanders were 
a dying breed

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## Larry McCully

Yes i know, floorsanding is increasingly becoming a popular floorcovering nowdays. They spent a lot of time and effot on different coating solutions and it has become a sience. i rememember when i would get a phone call from a builder and he would want me to put down a rush coat of wattle 7008 over a floor that was just built with no walls. totally exposed to the elements. I remember doing that to a floor and looking over my shoulder trying to beat the rain that was comeing. I remember i could feel spots of rain on my back while i was franticly flood coating a timber floor.

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## Cloudy

Just want to thank you all for your help. After a long period of getting some stuff tested for asbestos, I have now exposed the floor boards.  
The lino came up easy in half of the area, and the other half was stuck down. Strange, I don't know why. 
I used the shovel idea and it really worked a treat! The tricky part was lifting the first bit up then you can really get the shovel in under it to lift off entire pieces. Most nails stayed in the floor. 
I used the stanley knife idea to cut around pieces up where the lino was stuck. Was a really great idea which saved my back big time. 
Now this damn paper material is left on the floor boards. Some just lifts off but most is stuck, not glue stuck, just kind of moulded itself to parts of the board underneath. So I am scraping this off. I'm not doing a very good job with it. Any advice on this? I'm not going to sand it off. Forget that idea.  
I have a bloke coming in to do the sanding and waterbase coating Monday for $44/m2. Bit more than I had thought originally but all quotes were around this and he was the only one who actually made it out to give me an in-house quote. Others just didn't turn up. 
I made him aware that there might be some of this stuff stuck down and he said it will just be a couple of hundred more worse case scenario. That's aright. Are sanders used to this? 
Well 25m2 done - and I'm very sore... I still need to pull out the nails which are everywhere!! and try and get this paper stuff off. No beer in the fridge....
Funny though I feel tempted to keep going into the loungeroom and pull up the carpet - under this there is NO masonite or paper stuff, just clean floorboards! Hmmm... if I win lotto tonite maybe   The last pic you can see the colour of the Jarrah - for some reason there was no paper stuff in the area.

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## goldie1

We want pics of the final finish particually that area in the bathroom door with the water staining. In six months  
you will look back on all this and laugh  :Smilie:

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## Cloudy

I was thinking, I didn't mention anything about a bathroom, how did he  know? Nice work Goldie, you have hawk eyes as I have untrained eyes. 
The staining appears to be mainly on the paper material, upon scraping  this away a bit the floorboards seem fine. I've attached some a pic of  this and a few more.  Hope you like the bathroom tiles - lovely aren't they? Hall coming up to kitchen and dining room Kitchen with staining under fridge Dining Room

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## Cloudy

Does anyone have an idea how this cupboard can be removed? I want to reposition it and have the floorboards sanded underneath. But from what I can see, its nailed down by diagonally positioned nails. There also seems to be a gap underneath. Inside I cannot see any bolts or anything. Its down pretty solidly. See close up pic where you can make out the nail holes. I don't know yet how I go about removing these nails as they are in deep.    
Also, these gaps here (you can see the outside brick on this one), is something the sander could fill in? Otherwise what do you recommend I do about it?

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## Larry McCully

If you get a flat pry bar or a flat blade shovel and wedge it under one end, you should be able to pry it up. But first try to identufy wether it has been nailed or screwed down. It will only be into the floor boards. Even if the nails are skewed in, they will pull out. They would only be small nails. But if it is screwed, Then take the time to remove any paint from the grove and then unscrew them.There would only be 2-4 nails.  

> Does anyone have an idea how this cupboard can be removed? I want to reposition it and have the floorboards sanded underneath. But from what I can see, its nailed down by diagonally positioned nails. There also seems to be a gap underneath. Inside I cannot see any bolts or anything. Its down pretty solidly. See close up pic where you can make out the nail holes. I don't know yet how I go about removing these nails as they are in deep.    
> Also, these gaps here (you can see the outside brick on this one), is something the sander could fill in? Otherwise what do you recommend I do about it?

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## goldie1

The tiles are interesting wouldn't mind a bigger pic. Does that nib wall continue behind the cupboard or is just touching the  
end? I would think it is just nailed into the floor packed level to give the gap. Rusted nails into jarra would be fairly solid but 
could be screws. Can you slide a hacksaw blade under to cut them.

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## Larry McCully

You will want to use a scotia trim around that room. Something like a quad or orther type of small moulding. That gap is to wide to fill.  [/QUOTE]

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## Larry McCully

Another suggestion, go under the house and see if you can jack the framing up and put a spacer in to bring the floor level up again.

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## Cloudy

Thanks, used a crow bar in the end, got it out well. Wow, what space!!! 
Sander bloke is doing the boards now! I can see he is now on the belt sander and they deep red is coming up beautifully!   
Thanks Larry, will do the Scotia Trim then.  
You like the tiles Goldie?  :Smilie: 
This is the next job. Maybe re-tile over them or clean and seal them (maybe pink and green will come back in fashion) and just do the black tiles. Definitely need a new vanity and basin! Re-paint the bath? Oh.. that's for another thread.. or maybe I should have just called this thread "Cloudy's DIY Home reno diary"

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## goldie1

The tub and basin colour are a bit of a shock to the system but yes I like the tiles.

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## Cloudy

> The tub and basin colour are a bit of a shock to the system but yes I like the tiles.

  Ha, well pink will come back in fashion don't you worry  :Wink:  
Here are some pics of the floor boards after first sanding including a close up of the ones outside the bathroom

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## goldie1

Looking good love that deep red colour

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## Larry McCully

I recon you should re grout the tiles in the bathroom and keep that retrolook. Those tile look cool.

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