I considered using it on my entire floor, and given my history, I could imagine using it every few months as a perpetual stop-gap measure.īut because my floor had no wax, I had two other options that could save future work. Wood Preen brought a light-amber hue to areas with no remaining polyurethane finish, and it obscured water stains. I tried this on part of my floor, and it worked nicely. “If you really have little time, this is the way to go,” said Mr. (Johnson’s One-Step is another option, but not on waxed floors.) But if you have a floor with wax, varnish or shellac, your last-minute spruce-up job comes down to one option: liquid floor wax and cleaner, like Bruce Light ’n’ Natural Liquid Paste Wax With Cleaner, or Wood Preen (both about $10 for a quart), among many others. Some people have wax on their floors, either because they inherited an old home or because they used a cleaner that contains wax.Ī smaller group of people will have varnish or shellac finishes, which are usually orange in tone. Here’s some help: the vast majority of wood floors are coated with polyurethane. The first step is identifying what’s on your floor. But if, next year, you’ll try a do-it-yourself refinishing job, don’t wax now, because all that wax will have to come off first.
MINWAX HARDWOOD FLOOR REVIVER BEFORE AND AFTER PROFESSIONAL
If you plan to drop $4,000 on a professional refinishing job after the holidays, an inexpensive liquid floor wax and cleaner, like SC Johnson One Step (about $7 for 22 ounces), will do fine. They can all save you from holiday embarrassment, but some strategizing is in order. The professionals’ advice yielded three options: a basic liquid floor wax, a tinted wax and cleaner, or a polyurethane polish. Votta’s company installed the oak flooring at the TD Banknorth Garden in Boston, where the Celtics play a good proxy for what my children do to our floor. For advice, I turned to four people: Jeff Jewitt, the chief executive of Homestead Finishing Products and the author of “Taunton’s Complete Illustrated Guide to Finishing” (Taunton Press) Michael Dresdner, an author and blogger on the subject of wood finishing () Bob Flexner, the author of “Understanding Wood Finishing” (Fox Chapel Publishing) and Mark Votta, an owner of the Kenvo Floor Company in Exeter, R.I.