Is It Necessary To Remove Base Shoe When Refinishing Floors

Does the base shoe need to be removed before refinishing or installing a wood floor.

Is it necessary to remove base shoe when refinishing floors.

Sand floors down to bare wood if there s a wax finish on top of the polyurethane if the finish has worn through or if the floor has been stained or damaged. Dont use half round as it makes instal look amateur. If you don t remove before you refinish the floors there will be a line in floor where you stopped sanding. It is most likely that the existing base shoe molding has been in place for quite some time so it may be dented or damaged in places.

Remove existing baseboard then instal new flooring. When attaching the base shoe quarter round nail the molding into the bottom of the existing baseboard and not into the flooring itself. If your floor is thinner than 3 4 you may want hire a pro to avoid accidentally sanding down to the subfloor. Some newer floors are as thin as 1 4 and cannot be.

Install the base shoe quarter round molding over the expansion gap created by your new hardwood flooring. Use pine not mdf. This gap will help ensure your flooring has enough room to expand and contract throughout the seasons. Installing the bamboo flooring up to the current baseboards not removing the baseboards would require the addition of the quarter round trim to cover the seam.

Pry up the moulding with a pry bar using a piece of scrap wood to protect the baseboard. But on some jobs the floors can be sanded up to the edge without damaging the baseboards. Before your start sanding floors use the same preparations for screening though you might want to create a double airlock plastic on both sides of a door to keep the dust confined it really flies with a drum sander. There are a couple of reasons why you should remove the base shoe before installing a new floor.

The most important thing to know about shoe molding is that you always nail it into the wall never the floor. Since the sanding process can remove a lot of surface your floor needs to be at least 3 4 thick. Have it pre painted before instal. Make sure new base is high enough to cover old paint line.

That could be a problem if they need refinishing. I recall refinishing a turn of the century victorian in san fransisco years ago. All the areas to be refinished had wall to ceiling wainscot paneling in solid walnut at the bottom the carpenters had installed this cove walnut base that sat on the subfloor and had a squared off leading edge. The flexibility of base shoe enables you to bend it to conform with the wavy floors that are almost universal in older homes and still quite common in new construction.

If they were painted many times you will not have time to refinish them before the crew finishes the flooring. It has to come off. Before floor refinishing with a sander you should pull up the shoe base moulding along where the floor meets the wall. Number or otherwise label each piece as you remove it to make it easier to put it back after refinishing the floor.

The quarter round in this case referred to as base shoe has no purpose other than to conceal the joint between the base and the floor.