When we arrived at the address, we found an engineered floor with a slightly worn finish. Parts of that finish were completely gone, revealing the bare, exposed wood below. The reasons for this could be many. For example, bad cleaning regime, moving of furniture, attempts to remove persistent stains and so on.
Sometimes people call us and ask, “Can you just sand this area and leave the rest of the floor untouched because it is not damaged?” The answer, unfortunately, is “No.” You see, if we only sand the damaged parts, this will lead to a colour disparity between the new finish we apply on the damaged areas and the old one. For this very reason, if you sand your floor, you strip all of it or none at all!
In the end, we had to sand the surface of an engineered floor which only needed a quick face lifting in order to reveal its beauty. It had not suffered any notable kind of damage … yet. The client was wise to call us before any real harm could occur. This is how you save money and prevent trouble in the future – you take care of the problem before it becomes a real threat.
Restoration Of The Floor
The biggest disadvantage of engineered floors lies in the fact that they can only be refinished a limited number of times. The reason is the thin real wood veneer sitting on top. Once this top layer is stripped to a certain point, there is no way to sand without revealing the plywood below. Fortunately, there was absolutely no problem restoring the surface of the floor. The veneer was in relatively good condition and we could proceed with the restoration without any worry.
Now, staining a floor can be difficult because different types of wood can react differently. There are those species which simply have a hard time absorbing the product because of their cell structure (birch and maple). Other types of wood have a natural colour which alters the shade achieved with the stain (red oak). The best way to see how the stain will look is by seeing it on your floor. That's why we provide free samples on the finishing products. Of course, the stain samples will be sanded away later on.
Then there is also the choice of finish. An oil or hardwax won’t work with lighter stains because they tend to turn yellow as they age. This means, that you need a lacquer, a water-based varnish which will keep the colours consistent. While darker stains don’t suffer as much from this, they are also affected. Some customers enjoy those effects, others do not and that is why it is important to hire someone who listens to what you want to do with the floor. Someone like us.
We easily sanded the surface with a fine sandpaper, filled the gaps and buffed everything one final time in preparation for the staining. The stain application itself must be performed fast and if you put too much of the product you risk the so-called “bleedback” when the excess material simply wicks back to the surface and destroys the uniform appearance of the floor. Naturally, we had no such problems. All that was left to do was apply multiple coats of Junckers HP Commercial and let it dry in peace. All done!
The Results
The whole job took us three to four days to completely mostly because staining the floor obviously increased the drying time. Four coats of Junckers HP Commercial were all it took to transform this worn and distressed floor into the beautiful surface you see below on the pictures. It was not a complicated job and our team enjoyed doing it. Our company provides its clients with the same excellent results regardless of the size and importance of the project. We value all of our customers equally and we can perform the same service on your floor for a very affordable price!