Help with SOFT wide pine flooring

[blueman]

We recently purchased an old New England house and had the 100+yr old wide pine flooring on our house professionally sanded and polyurethaned (with 4 coats of oil-based poly).

The floors look beautiful, full of character. However, after only a couple of weeks we are finding that the floors are incredibly easy to scratch, gouge, and even dent.

Most disturbingly, near a desk, we have found the floor covered with numerous round dents matching the the legs of a folding chair (even though the bottom of the chair has a quarter-size thick felt pad on each leg).

I know that pine is soft, but this seems ridiculous. I don't recall seeing so much denting and gouging before we had it refinished.

- Is it possible that the floor people did something to make the wood more vulnerable? (or did I just not notice this before).

- Is there anything we can do other than being very careful, putting down rugs, etc?

Thanks

[Duane Bozarth]

A. Not really. If it is white pine as in NE at that age is a good bet, it is a soft material. There is some "case hardening" for lack of better terminology that occurs w/ time that will have been removed and that time will gradually help.

B. Again, not a lot. It would have been possible to use an acrylic harder finish, but w/o refinishing yet again I don't think there's much to be done.

I suspect you simply didn't see the effects in the old floor prior to the refinishing that you now see because it's smooth and reflective. Protection where there are point loads is the best solution I know.

[blueman]

Yes, it is "white pine"

I suspected that much. Though my wife and family think I am crazy for going around each weekend checking the bottoms of chairs and asking people to take their shoes off in the house :)

Thanks for confirming my suspicions...

[Goedjn]

Youare crazy. Pine plank flooring is expected to show wear. worrying about dents is like worrying about dust on your blackboards. If you don't like it, put down area rugs.

[nospambob]

[blueman]

But it has now been 5 months. Also, it is not just the finish, but the wood substance itself that is denting.