Best way to clean up 100 year old pine floors just to get by?

Question

We bought a house and eventually we want to take the time to fix the floors and finish them off perfectly but due to timing- I just want to clean them up, throw rugs down and then fix them later. The floors are old bull pine- wide blanks- rough and unfinshed- I am guessing at least 100 years old. I think parts of the house are from late 1700s... and it was redone in the 1800s. The people that lived there before us were completely pigs so their is marker, crayons and gunk on the wood. It's a forecloser home- so they trashed it on the way out. Is there anything I can scrub the wood with that will clean them up and make them livable? Eventually we are going to pull up every plank, plane them out and varnish the floors but I just want to get them clean for the timing being.

Thanks!!

Answer 1

rent a standing floor sander from lowes, sand the floors and stain them. It will definitely take some hard work, but it will be worth it in the end. Its relatively inexpensive, so I think by doing a quick fix youre wasting time and money. Once you restain the floors you wont have to worry about them for a long long time.

Answer 2

we have a 100 year old house, with original floors as well.  My wife heard/read somewhere that "AVON" bubble bath was good to use, so she tried it.  and, as funny as it sounds, it WORKS!

we have a 2 year old who likes crayons and markers, but you don't see a single mark on our floors, because of this surprising product.  we were told by the avon rep that this stuff is absolutly safe to use, so we do!  we have 3 bottles under our kitchen sink for this purpose alone.

i'd give it a try.

Answer 3

First, scrape off any gunk you can with a putty knife.

Then rent a floor scrubber - the kind with brushes - and use Murphy's Oil Soap.  Run it as if you would a scrubber on a tile floor, and use old towels to swab up the dirt that comes loose.

Do this until you stop getting filthy water from scrubbing.

Let it dry and use some steel wool dipped in mineral spirits on the gunk that didn't dissolve with soap.

You can use a sander, just get a small handheld belt sander or a hand-held pad sander that is small enough to work on just one board at a time.

Let it dry and then oil it with a penetrating oil finish if you want to. A medium walnut matte oil would hide a lot of dings and scratches.

Call it "rustic", claim it has "patina", and enjoy it.