Please help with hardwood nightmare

9 years ago

Long complicated story, but I will try to keep it brief...

We had dark hardwoods installed in the first floor of our new home. In the course of the construction process, they were pretty scratched and damaged, mostly from the fireplace/stone installation. The builder had the flooring company come back to repair the floors. They buffed/sanded and then coated them with a polyurethane finish. It looked pretty good, definitely better than the scratches. But there were some areas that needed more work. A few boards that were replaced were dull instead if shiny like the rest, a spot in the middle of the living room where they applied poly over some paint splatters that had to be sanded off, and it seemed that the shininess of the poly ended at the hallway like he had only done the main areas of the house. When we truued to talk to him about it, he said he had done the whole floor and the rest just wasn't as shiny because he didn't buff it as much. But there was a clear line in the doorway where you could see shiny/not shiny. In that conversation he mentioned that he had used satin poly.

He came back today to do all the rework. Now it seems all the areas he worked on are shinier than the "shiny" floors that he did the first time. My husband asked him what he used and this time he said semi gloss and he said that was what he used the first time.

Frankly, I'm tired of dealing with this company (same people who did a crapoy job on our pebble tile-post in the bathrooms forum). Is there anything we can put on the floors to even out the shine? Can we buff them or something? We didn't want shiny floors to begin with. But now we just want all the floor to look the same.

The first picture is of the difference in sheen in the area that had the paint drips sanded off.

Comments (8)

kendravicknair
Original Author
9 years ago
This picture shows the difference in sheen from the uncoated floor to the coated floor. We didn't have a way to move the washer and dryer out of the laundry room, so we told him to stop at the doorway to the laundry. Instead of breaking the finish at the doorway, he wiped it into the room, so it looks terrible.
kendravicknair
Original Author
9 years ago
The more I look at the floors, the more disgusted I am. I feel like I want to throw up or cry or both. They are SO shiny in all the areas he redid today. I just don't know what to do.
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cardinal94
9 years ago
I don't know enough to help solve your problem. Just want to say I completely understand your desire to just be done with them. We are in our new home that took months longer than it should have and we finally said just get out - leave - we're done with you. We already had things to do ourselves, but now have to correct and finish things that weren't completed or not done correctly. There comes a point where your sanity and sleeping at night are more important.

Hopefully someone can give you technical pointers. My only suggestion is throw rugs and strategically placed lighting. Shouldn't have to be that way, should it?

By the way, love your doors.
Kaprizhardwoodfloors
9 years ago
they need to buff floors throw out the house and apply new finish. Not just some boards or do one bedroom and skip the others. Most likely even if they apply flat finish it will turn out satin or semigloss. It will not be flat or matt, it;s still will look like gloss.
glennsfc
9 years ago
Is this hand scraped flooring? ...it sure looks like it.
kendravicknair
Original Author
9 years ago
Met with the builder and the owner of the flooring company today. He has agreed to have the whole house buffed down and recoated. Here's hoping they look better when they're done.

And yes, handscraped.
josephrohdes221
9 years ago
I've been renting my attached apartment for 10 years.
When we bought the house we had the wood floors refinished to the tune of $2000.
In 10 years we've had 3 sets of fantastic tenants. There has not been a single tenant who has not scratched or marked the floor in some way. The worst of which were a few water marks at the entrance of one of the bedrooms where it was impossible to hide with furniture or rugs as it was in the pathway of the door. We contemplated having them refinished again but decided to try to refinish the worst spots ourselves. Sanding and using a similar varnish brought the floors to an acceptable, albeit not perfect, level again. We charged the tenants $100 out of their security deposit.

My feeling is that you will never have wood floors returned to you in pristine condition. Wood floors scratch over time, that is the nature of them.
jellytoast
9 years ago
"Most likely even if they apply flat finish it will turn out satin or semigloss. It will not be flat or matt, it still will look like gloss."

Why is that?