Update: That '2 hour hardwood floor refinish' took me 3 days

I saw this TikTok video where a guy refinishes his hardwood floors in like 2 hours with some cheap orbital sander and a can of polyurethane. Looked super easy so I figured I could knock it out over the weekend. I rented a drum sander from Home Depot on a Friday morning, thinking I'd be done by dinner. Yeah, no. First, the sander threw me across the room on the first pass because I didn't know how to start it right. Then I spent 2 hours fixing the gouges it left. After 3 coats of poly with drying time between each, I finally finished Sunday night around 9pm. My back is still sore three weeks later. Has anyone else fallen for one of those 'quick' DIY videos that left you in way deeper than you planned?

2 comments

2 Comments

josephbailey4d ago

Man that's the classic trap right there - people see these videos and think it's gonna be some quick little project but they never show you the setup or the screwups or the real work. It's like going to the hardware store for a 20 minute job and leaving with your whole weekend booked up because something else broke along the way. You just gotta laugh at yourself and remember that most of those videos are edited down from a week of labor and a lot of swearing.

henry_ross3d ago

and even then you're lucky if the video shows the actual final result. most of those guys cut out the part where they realize the measurements were off by half an inch and have to redo the whole frame. my last project took three trips to the store because the first pipe size was wrong, then the fitting didn't match, then the damn thing leaked on the test run. the video made it look like a 12 minute job. i had my kitchen half torn apart for two days over something that should've taken an afternoon.