How do I prepare to paint a floor that has been painted and coated with a varnish or polyurethane? It is in a historic building and the floors switch between cement and wood, but all were painted this way.
The only way to actually do this and preserve the history of the floors and the building is to strip the floor with wood stripper. You must take off the old coat of varnish on the floor so you can sand them down, refinish them, stain and varnish them again. This is quite a large job and you'll need to go to the hardware store and get some varnish stripper to apply on the floor first. Afterwards, to remove the varnish this take a scraper or something flat. The floor then needs to be sanded
If this is a historical building, I would do the job correctly to restore the floors and the value of the building. Normally, you should be able to rent some equipment to help with this job to make it a bit easier to do.
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Our home was built in the early 70s. The wood was finished with high gloss varnish and now we want to paint over it. What is the least labor intensive way to prepare the high gloss surface?
I am wanting to paint over a banister around the stairs with a cream gloss. It is varnished brown at the moment. Is that possible without sanding?
