Overzealous cleaning problem

[Kevin C Welch]

Hi, everyone.

I have a wood floor that the original owner probably purchased at Home Depot. The floor itself appears to be tongue-in-groove planks and deep red, perhaps cherry.

Anyway, there were a lot of paint drops and streaks on the floor that I cleaned up with a razor, an ammonia-based solvent, and a scouring pad. Needless to say, it took off some of the finish.

I've cleaned the wood with water and Murphy's and I applied some Murphy's directly to the "sanded" areas, but they still seem to show through as rough spots.

Any suggestions as to how I can repair this floor? (please post if possible)

[Doug Kanter]

No suggestions. But, after I had my entire first floor sanded and refinished, the foreman on the job told me to wash the floors using a solution made from one cup of Windex in 2 gallons of water. I used that for

3 years without noticing any degradation of the finish.

As an alternative, install extremely thick carpet. Human feet aren't designed for walking on hard surfaces like wood.

[RonB]

Very long shot and not permanant. Get some wood paste wax - MinWax is fine and apply/buff it on the trouble areas. It might help and it will last a while.

We had an older rental a few years ago that our son lived in during college. The living room carpets were a mess. One summer, we got a wild ideal and pulled the carpet up on one corner and found oak floors. They were a little worn and dirty and had the carpet back imprinted in places. We scrubbed them and applied two coats of MinWax paste, buffing both with a rental buffer. They looked GREAT! They stayed that way too. A year later, when we were getting ready to sell it, the real estate agent that originally sold it to us raved about the "wonderful floor refinish" we had done. Whole thing took 3 hours and a six-pack.

[Fdmorrison]

"Doug Kanter" [e-mail]

wrt flooring

That makes no sense. Wood's a wonderful flooring. Remove all old carpeting to get to the great wood. Frank Morrison

[nospambob]

[Prometheus]

I hate to suggest it, as you've probably already spent a lot of time kneeling on the sucker scraping things, but it might be worth just renting a floor sander and refinishing the whole thing. Just be very careful with the sander if you go this route. It's not that hard, but it'd be a good idea to practice on a piece of cheap plywood or your porch or something first. If you let it sit in one place too long [while it's running] or tilt the unit somehow, it can ruin a beautiful floor rather quickly.