I was wondering if anybody else is experiencing this problem. I have really nice hardwood floors in my house, but years back I made a horrible mistake of putting down polyurethane on them. Now that I have the daycare in my home I find that the kids are scratching the polyurethane up and it make it look like the stain is coming up, and the stain is coming up in some places. Can anyone recommend a product out there to cover up the scratch marks. To shine my floors I use Quick Shine, but I need to something to cover up the scratch marks. If someone could recommend something that would be great. I do know that eventually I will need to have them restained.

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I'm not sure what you mean by the stain coming up, but polyurethane is what you are supposed to have on hardwood floors. Were your floors originally pre-finished? That might cause the new poly to not sit well, especially if you didn't first sand the old finish off. I have wood throughout my house. The kitchen is the only floor that originally came unfinished. The poly on that isn't as durable as the prefinished floors in the rest of the house so we have already sanded and refinished the floors twice now. The other floors seem pretty indestructible. My kids tend to push their trucks and drags chairs and everything else over the floor and they still look like the day we put them in. The poly is more or less baked on at the factory so it lasts forever. I don't know what to recommend to cover up the scratches, but I use Bruce Hardwood floor cleaner and they seem to shine up pretty nice with that. You could also try touching up the deep scratches with a bit of leftover poly, if you have any.

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When I originally moved in the floors had polyurethane on them, but the floors were dull so it was suggested that I get some polyurethane to make them shine again. Big mistake! What I mean about the stain coming up is that it is just fading from the children rolling the toys in that area.

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Ok. I read that as the stain was somehow coming up through the poly. Do the floors actually have stain on them or is it just the poly wearing off to show bare wood? Poly alone will darken bare wood. If it is stain, and you can easily match it, a temporary fix would be to touch it up and put more poly on it. It's not going to look perfect but protecting bare wood until you can refinish the floors will help prevent any further damage, especially if it is a high traffic area.

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DH is a wood worker, he says if your biggest mistake was you needed to sand the entire floor before ever applying a second coat of polyurethane. Which is why you are having issues now.

The DCK's WILL scratch the floor as that is almost inevitable but what you can do now is sand the entire floor and reapply the poly.

If you have real wood floors you can sand and re-poly several times through out the floors lifetime.

If you have engineered hardwood floors, you still need to sand and re-apply poly but you won't be able to repeat the process as many times throughout the years.

It is NEVER recommended to sand and apply poly in small areas but to sand the ENTIRE floor.

You should also NEVER apply poly over poly without sanding first.

Sanding IS the key to good applications and a long life.

HTH

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