Solid Hardwood, Engineered and Laminate Flooring - Refinishing, reinstalling quarter round

My husband and I have pulled up 3/4 inch oak quarter round (only broke one) from our recently purchased 2800 sq. ft. 1972 home. The floors are being refinished as I type. Questions: What is the best way to refinish all these pieces of wood (we have them bundled and marked as to their location)? Sand by hand, with a small sander - if so, which one would work best? Do we then stain and polyurethane them to match the floors? When we reinstall, do we use the same size nail and the same nail holes - will that secure them well enough? You can tell we are novices and learning as we go - how the heck do you get all the nails out of this wood without breaking them????? Thank you in advance for any advice.

Remove nails by gently tapping nail backward through nail hole in trim. Gently tug at nail with pliers or channel locks to remove the rest of the way from the wood.

Strip existing finish. Fill existing nail holes with stainable wood filler. Hand sand. Stain & seal to match your floor or your baseboard. Reinstall.

Thank you Twelvepole. Going to start on the quarter round project today. Cheers.

I beg to differ with the suggestion that the nails be backed out of the shoe mold. This will tend to blow out splinters around the set nails. A better solution would be to take ViceGrip pliers and pull the nails on through from the back side. That way any blow-out is not visible and the putty remains in the nail hole and will not require refilling.

I'm putting in some pre-finished maple quarter round using an 18ga pnuematic brad nailer. My thinking is that the brad will not be that noticeable.

I noticed that the sample brads that came with the brad nailer are painted brown on the head! I had read about painted nail heads in an article but I didn't know if this was common.

Thiggy or twelvepole is this how you would install prefinished quarter round? Have you used painted head nails and do you think they are worth it?

If so where can you get them?

Thanks

Now that you mention it, I believe that all of my brads with my 18 gauge brad gun have brown heads, such as they are. My 16 gauge finishing nails do not. I nearly always counter-sink the nails and fill the holes, so this is not an issue.;)

Fill the holes with prefinished?

Or perhaps you rarely use prefinished.

Oops! I overlooked 'prefinished'. True, I rarely used prefinished trim.

Alex,

Set your air pressure so it sinks the nail. Fill the hole with soft puttey with a matching color to the prefinished. ( usually comes in a jar ) Wipe off excess with a clean rag so you don't leave any residue on the Q RND.

AL