Hardwood flooring is beautiful, but it shows its age over time. Hardwood can be scratched fairly easily, and when the scratches accumulate, they take away from the beauty of your floor. A benefit of having wood flooring is that it can be rejuvenated. There are a few things you might try yourself, but you'll probably get the best results from a hardwood flooring professional. Here are ways to get rid of scratches in wood flooring.
Use Scratch Covering Products
You can buy products that hide scratches in wood floors. These are easy to use, and all you have to do is apply the product with a cloth. These don't remove scratches, they just hide them. Before using a product like this in an area that's highly visible, try rubbing it in a closet so if the color doesn't match or if you don't like the results, you won't make your floor problem worse.
You may find home remedies for filling in scratches, such as rubbing walnuts on the floor, but always try the remedy in a hidden area first, and keep in mind, the results might look different in different types of lighting. Filling in scratches might not be the right choice when your floor has a lot of damage.
Have The Scratches Sanded Out
Another option is to remove the scratches. If there are only a few scratches or if the scratches are in a small area, you or a hardwood flooring service might sand the scratches out by hand. You might want to let a professional handle this job because the difficult part is matching up the stain once the scratches are gone.
Sanding takes the stain and finish off the area too, and those have to be reapplied. Even if you find the exact products used on the floor originally, the color may not match due to aging of the old stain and finish. A professional can choose the right products to use so the scratches disappear and the repaired area blends in perfectly.
Refinish The Floor
If your wood floors are old, they may have a lot of scratches. If scratches cover a large area of the flooring, then refinishing is probably the right solution. However, you may want an opinion from a hardwood flooring professional. Refinishing the floor is the same principle as repairing scratches by hand sanding, except on a much larger scale.
Machines are used to sand the entire floor to get rid of all scratches and imperfections. When sanding is finished and the dust is removed, a stain is applied and topped with a protective clear coat. Since all the previous stain was removed, you don't have to worry about matching colors and you can choose any stain you want to complete the restoration of your flooring. Learn more and find hardwood flooring experts, like those at 1-2-3 Floor!, near you today.
After tearing out all of the old carpet from our home, I realized that we needed something a little better. I began looking around at alternatives, and I found a really nice laminate that worked well with our budget and that looked really nice. I talked with the installers about putting it in, and they were more than happy to work with us. Within a few weeks, we had a new floor, and it made all the difference in the world. I decided that it would be fun to start an entire blog about flooring, so read more here if you have questions.