We recently purchased a home in Central Florida. Its over 6000 square feet. We're in the midst of a substantial renovation and one of the first things we tackled were very ugly (in our opinion) Orange-Shiney engineered floors ..

We were absolutely sure we'd be spending our entire budget if we had to pull them up and replace them (we hated them that bad). Coming from the North East though - where 'real' hardwood floors are the norm - we first thought of sanding them and refinishing them. Our first challenge was even finding someone in Sarasota FL who had experience refinishing floors (seems most the folks we talked to could only talk about putting down all new engineered floors - perhaps because so many homes are newer down here). Well we found someone and had him sand down the floors in the office for a test. LOW & BEHOLD ..underneath all that shiney orangey color were beaufiful Maple floors. We had him put down BONA finish (water based so the maple won't yellow over time) and they look absolutely beautiful.

I'll share pictures when we're done (the rest of the floors are now on hold while we do the rest of the renovation which involves alot of demolition of walls /etc ). But I wanted to share this tip with anyone who buys a home or has a home w/ Engineered Wood Floors -- trying sanding them down first (oh and we could have tried a stain on them but maple is notorious for not taking stain well -- so we're sticking with the natural maple that we found underneath).

If anyone wants any details or wants an excellent 'wood floor' guy in the sarasota / tampa / naples area -- please reach out to me.

THE UGLY ORANGEY SHINEY ENGINEERED FLOORS (stay tuned for the lovely natural maple we found 'underneath' )

*** NOTE ..this is not our furniture -- this is the Realtor's picture of the living room w/ the prior owner's stuff!! **