Hardwood Wearing? Here is My Hack!!

3 Materials
$1
30 Minutes
Easy

We installed engineered hardwood in a dark hand scraped hickory in our new home 10 years ago. Over the years the finish on it has worn in high traffic areas. This drives me crazy but I was not about to have the entire main floor refinished, I had to find an easier solution.

See the worn areas that show the raw wood and stick out like sore thumbs? This is where the island stools slide in and out daily. I came up with a plan and ran with it.

It involved a light brown stain pen and two sharpie markers; one black one brown. Layering the colors of these 3 pens coloring them on the exposed wood areas then wiping and buffing with a paper towel gave me the look I desired. It is not perfect but it sure made HUGE difference. Click here if you want to see a video of me doing this.

This is another area where the stool was wearing thru with a closer view.

And here it is after my hardwood repair hack. It works for me for now. Eventually I will have to get the hardwood refinished but I hope that is many years away.


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  • Deborah Houston Deborah Houston on Mar 24, 2021

    These are all great ideas! I am luck that I just have scuffs and not scratches in my enginered hardwood. Does anyone have a method to remove scuffs from the clear coat? I loves my floor but if I had known that it was this touchy I would never have gotten it. It makes me crazy! Thanks in advance for any tips!

  • Susan Mendenhall Susan Mendenhall on Mar 18, 2024

    Hello,

    lol, I’ve been ‘coloring’ on my floor too!!

    We also have hand scraped engineered hardwood floors. Can these floors be refinished? I was told engineered could not be, which is devastating because we have a lot and it is doing exactly what yours is!!

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  • Mike Williamson Mike Williamson on Mar 19, 2024

    Yes, Creative Moments, it is a big job, and a dusty one as well.

    It's best left to professionals.


    Some (not all) engineered flooring can be refinished just one time because the mechanical sander is very aggressive and will remove a very thin layer of wood along with the finish. There is also some hand scraping that needs to be done along the edges.

    Solid wood flooring can usually be refinished more than once.


    Thanks for your compliment. :~)


    Mike


    • Creative Moments Creative Moments on Mar 19, 2024

      Thanks I will look for a great pro in my area as agree dont want to mess up. They told us when we bought the floor could be refinished once for sure but will remove the hand scraped look ;( I wish now we bought solid but everything was pricey when building so went with this which we loved at the time

  • Maude  LaFountain Maude LaFountain 4 days ago

    When I was growing up and we lived in houses with hardwood floors not what you have but I think what I’m about to say here just might work for your floor .. my mom would mop the floor then she would get a container of Glo -Coat floor polish / wax .. then she would get a bottle of brown shoe polish or brown shoe dye and put about half a bottle of it into the polish then use a sponge mop and mop the whole floor with it made the worn spots disappear… she did that about once a month because there were 8 kids so lots of foot traffic on those floors … not sure if they still make the floor polish that she bought but any floor polish should work as long as you add the shoe polish / shoe dye … wouldn’t hurt to try on your floors … hope this helps …

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