DH has ruined week old wood flooring

[Veraper]

I feel sick to my stomach.

We have splashed out on parquet flooring for all of downstairs (sick of renting a rug dr after every dog walk). Have been uber cautious with furniture pads etc.

DH saw ink-like black splodges on the floor last night and had to scrub very hard using the green side of the sponge to remove (still slightly visible tbh). And the floor now has white splodges the size of Xmas choc coins.

We are wooden floor newbies, can anyone save my floors? Has the varnish just come off? They are my dream floors and I didn’t even get to enjoy them yet (still doing up the rest of the house)

This sort of thing is pretty much a weekly event in our house.Last week DP left a very overripe banana on our oak dining table,it leaked and left a big,dark brown,banana shaped stain.

You must be fuming OP but I'm sure something can be done to disguise the damage.

Good Lord. It's just flooring that can be repaired. Yes, it's annoying when other people mess up your new stuff, but being devastated is OTT.

My mum used a paste of Bisto powder when that happened to furniture.

This should be a fairly easy fix. The finish that your builders put on has simply been rubbed away by the looks of things and needs the exact same finish dabbed on to restore it. There may need to be a fine sanding process to blend it in with the surrounding wood, and it may need a couple of coats, but putting that same finish back down on those areas should mean it is colour matched.

The floor installers should be able to help.

I love these wood-floor sagas on MN. I remember I worked with a woman who went on and on about her planned laminate floors, the enormous travail of their installation, the rude 'workmen' (her word) when she said it didn't 'look right', etc, etc. Her husband left her the next year.

Don’t panic. Wood can be buffed and oil back to new. Our new wooden floor is like yours and was damaged seconds after fitting when the fitter got a bit of metal caught under the door and opened it leaving a semi circular scrape. He fixed it in about two minutes with buffing and oil. I repeat - don’t panic!!!

My husband used these scrub pads too...to get tar marks off my car 😩

The walnut trick is usually good for this type of damage to wood.

My husband washed my car with the revolving patio brush on his pressure washer, giving it a lovely matte finish. He also brought into the kitchen a £20 outside mat thing to protect it from a torrential downpour, propping the soaking wet thing against an emulsioned wall to drain onto a wooden floor.

That might not last long with the dog about.

From reading this thread, you'd think none of the posters have ever scratched, scorched, broken or stained anything. It's always the stupid men who can't do anything right.

We paid to have the hall landing and stairs professionally decorated. Within a week my now ex DH had drilled through a wire putting a screw in the wall for the phone (it was quite a while ago). Paper had to be stripped near the wire to fix it. He was probably lucky it ended ok for him too. I know that sinking feeling well 😫. Hope it can be fixed

DH did our new shiny hob with a scourer on the 3rd day of ownership! How he's still alive I don't know. He keeps buying bloody scourers for some reason. I throw them out as soon as I spot them in the house.

Find out from the builders exactly what they used to treat the unfinished flooring with. Buy a pot of the required finish (probably something like OSMO Polyx Oil). Hopefully, you can just get away with re-treating the effected areas - usually, a light sanding with 180 or 240 grit sandpaper and reapply the finish as per manufacturers instructions.

When you've got the details, ask online - there is a good woodworking forum on Redit., may be sub-redits specifically for flooring.

This will be a fairly simple fix and inexpensive - don't panic! It will be useful experience for learning how to fix the next time it gets damaged

Easily fixed. The person who installed them can sand and reapply the finish. Easy job.

@Lndnmummy that makes me feel so better, thank you!

Shoot him at dawn.

Go back to your supplier and ask them. That way you get the best possible advice. I'm sure that the advice provided is good but you qneed the right advice for your particular floor.

You hired a rug doctor after every dog walk. 😂😂

Thanks to all the posters who have said it’s not a hard fix! Massively helping my anxiety!

It's unfinished wood. I'd get some bees wax and wax that area. It's will be fine. If you have a dog it will very quickly have all sorts of scratches on it.

Yep, that’s exactly what they did with ours. Sand, stain, finish. No big deal.

its a piece of piss to change engineered wood clicked flooring (If you get someone in who knows what their doing).

Doesn't even matter if they've used glue and nail guns, its all do-able.

What goes down, can always come up ( 25+ years property developer).

You don't even have to do this , as many others have said, you can fix anything on real wood, ( watch the repair shop!) but whatever you do to disguise the marks, you'll probably stress, so get a virgin new bit to satisfy your anxiety ( I don't mean that in a nasty way OP, I'm a bit OCD like that myself, once I know something WAS there, I'm never satisified even though a stranger coming into the house wouldn't see anything!

Depending on the finish involved it's more than likely fixable or in the very worst instance just replace the boards involved with some spares.

You've chosen the wrong flooring if you are going to be "sick to your stomach" if it gets marked though. Flooring wears over time and this kind of thing is going to happen. Yes, it's annoying that it's brand new but you need to relax about marks and blemishes appearing over time.

If they are oiled, easy to repair.

Surely whatever caused the black marks has ruined the flooring first? I would try and find out what’s caused them.

This.