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)

If it’s solid wood, it should be very easy to fix with sand and re polish/oil. Definitely get the installers to help you. We had ours done about a year ago and they knocked a radiator pipe (floor standing radiators removed to allow for extra floor height) - absolutely covered the whole thing in black radiator water. It dried out and they sanded and re-oiled. Thought floors were ruined, but can’t see any of the damage now.

OP you won’t get anywhere until (as PPs have advised) you find out what the installers used to finish the wood. We have Osmo oiled parquet which does accumulate the odd scratch but it is so easy to hand-sand out just the scratch (often one of those nasty green scouring pads will do it) and reapply some osmo oil on a cloth. Leave to dry and good as new. If it is lacquer or varnish finish you need to sand the whole individual wood block and reapply the varnish. Once you’ve done it once you will agree it is super easy and only takes a few minutes. But unless you find out what you are dealing with, you (and other Mumsnetters) are just going in circles.

This is actually fixable OP and for not a huge amount.

1. Get someone to sand the whole thing prior to:
2. Getting a professional to apply polyurethane sealant - it’s waterproof, dog proof, child proof etc.

K2 might work, should be able to get it on Amazon. It's specifically for teak (boats) but can't see why it wouldnt work on other wood.

I keep throwing them out, but DH keeps sneaking more in. 😡

Oh I'm sorry, OP. What a disappointment.

We had engineered oak in our last house and I'm afraid it did get scratched by the dog (just walking on it). Keep the nails short?

At least you can sand it and re-varnish. I like the idea of the polyurethane sealant ^^. Sounds tough and durable.

Blimey @Veraper those marks and scrapes etc are really getting quite frequent and noticeable aren't they? I am so sorry. Imagine forking out lots of £££ just for this to happen.

My DH cleaned a chrome hob on a cooker we had some years ago, with one of those little cheapo scourer things (the rough side!) and marked it. THE DAY IT WAS FITTED! I was livid! It was about 3" round! I had to leave a saucepan on said hob permanently so no-one could see it!

He did the same to a hearth we had once too (several years after hobgate!) Wiped it with the rough side of a scourer and took some of the shine off it. 3 or 4 fifty pence size marks. TWIT! So I had to strategically place several ornaments and a couple of photos in frames to cover them.

As for your easily marked floor, I have no suggestions. I'm so sorry. I do feel for you! Doesn't seem very hard wearing really does it. And it's a much bigger issue (IMO) than the easily hidden marks on our hob and fireplace!

Don't justify how you feel! You are allowed to feel blue about it. There's ALWAYS someone worse off than yourself in this world, and always someone better off! Ignore the posters bashing you!

If it's individual planky bits you can replace individual ones rather than the whole floor. Did they leave you any spare bits?

I commiserate. We had expensive oak flooring put down in our living room and my twat of a DH brought my son's bike wheel in a week later to change the tyre. He dropped a heavy spanner on the floor numerous times and left loads of little dents in it.

OP we are a few weeks ahead of you in having our floors done.We have already had some scratches it seems super sensitive but we went for engineered wood because any damage can be sanded and reoiled.

That looks like a muddy foot print to me, you can see the sole pattern. Should hopefully wipe up easily enough.

You need to get it oiled or varnished asap or the whole lot with be trashed it’s unfinished

Solidarity op. My oh cracked my £3k quartz one Christmas eve. We had only had it a week. I am still mad about it now.

Crikey, once he'd made one white mark, why on earth did he keep going? 🙄

I really don't get why you would rub hard on one black spot, see that it hasn't removed it and then go and rub just as hard somewhere else. And then do it again. About 5 times.

Thpse green pads (if they are what I think they are) are very mild abrasives. So it must have taken a hell of a lot of rubbing.

Anyway.

My guess is you have taken the top layer off whatever it was treated with. You can probably get it back to colour. I would experiment with an offcut.

@CyberCritical it does look very much like a footprint but it’s not. No mud is coming up. Plus the mark is right next to the first step of the staircase. Person would basically be standing an inch from the wall in front and few centimetres to the side to have made that print. Sorry for awful diagram.

FAG ASH!!

Or any ash, mixed with a bit of water and rubbed in gently with a toothbrush. Should get rid of the white spots.

I once spent a lovely December evening wrapping Xmas presents kneeling on our beautiful new cream carpet. Possibly shouldn’t have worn brand new dark blue denim jeans…

We had similar engineered oak flooring for years, as have other family members.
DH has fitted it for a number of customers too.
I've looked at the advert and it's got a 3mm "wear layer" on the top (the rest of the planks are various sorts of plywood type products which don't warp or twist like some solid wood can). They are sold "unfinished " which means that they need a protective coat of floor oil (a popular brand is Osmo ) as soon as they are put down. This really should be several coats, not just one.

Properly treated a wood floor like that should last for years and years, with a yearly re-coat of the same product.

So: your problem. The little black marks- are they small dents? Feel with your finger. Some oak does have small marks like that in the grain naturally, and they can show up more when a finish is applied.

Find out which product was used and carefully apply to the sanded areas with a lint free cloth. Let it dry- you may need several coats.

The other mark could also be the natural grain patterns in the wood- it seems to be only on the one plank?

I've attached a couple of pictures of the grain pattern in oak (it's old oak so much darker than yours but the pattern is what you are looking for).

Similarly - this is our solid oak parquet floor. It is 86 years old. As @averylongtimeago notes you can often see the natural grain of the wood show a bit darker. Six years ago we had it sanded and sealed with a high traffic matt varnish.

Good wood parquet flooring should wear and mellow, not show every knock and spill.

Yep - STBXH used one of those on my high-gloss slab-fronted white kitchen units a few years ago. Twat!

Weaponised incompetence 101.

Unless I'm missing something that just looks like a pattern in the grain of the wood.

That’s beautiful!

I absolutely love 1930s features. Do you also have original 1930s doors and architrave and skirting boards and spindles? Serious envy

Looks very like mine which around 90 years old. Solid oak parquet is very different from engineered though.

Don’t know about pp but I do yes, it’s great.