To keep hardwood floors looking their best, put down area rugs in high-traffic spots (figure A).
Dust and dirt act like sandpaper on your hardwood floors. Damp-mop weekly to cut down on wear and tear. If your hardwood floor is damaged, you can fix it fairly easily. But you'll need to know what sort of finish it has. To find out, wipe the floor in an inconspicuous spot with an acetone-based nail-polish remover. Wax, shellac and varnish finishes will come up, but polyurethane won't. To remove scuff marks on a waxed floor, spray the area with vinegar-based cleaner, and allow it to soak. Then wipe lightly with 0000-grade (extra-fine) steel wool ( figure B). You can also use paste wax to clean waxed floors (figure C). On polyurethane-coated floors you can probably remove scuff marks with a pencil eraser. To conceal scratches, you can use a touchup stick (figure D), similar to a wax crayon. If the touchup stick doesn't work, try a felt-tip touchup pen (figure E), which contains wood stain rather than ink. With a touchup pen, it won't matter much if the colors are slightly off because the wood probably has several different colors anyway. If you must completely refinish an area, mask off the surrounding boards along the joint lines (figure F) to prevent them from becoming damaged when you remove the finish from the damaged boards. Next Weekend Project: Brace a Ceiling Fan Weekend Projects Index
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