Keep Your Hardwood Flooring Scratch-Free with These Hardwood Floor Care Tips

The Upkeep of Hardwood Floors
So you finally laid down the floor of your dreams, moved in the furniture and are enjoying every minute of your new interior. Then one day while relaxing, you notice a scratch. It may not be that serious, but to you it stands out. What do you do?

Preventing Scratches on Hardwood Flooring
Prevention is better than cure, so they say, and this adage also applies to your beautiful hardwood floors. To keep them staying as smooth and shiny as the day you first finished installing them. One of the things you can do is putting felt pads at the bottom of chair and table legs in order to prevent furniture drag. Of course, furniture shouldn't be dragged across the floor but carried as dragging heavy objects across your hardwood floor increases the chances of scratches forming.

When stepping on hardwood floors, it is best that you avoid walking on them with spiky shoes on, i.e., stilettos and gold shoes, as these can dig into the wood and cause deep scratches and gouges that can only be repaired by replacing the damaged floor board. Putting door mats on entryways also helps minimize sand and small rocks from being tracked into the hardwood floor.

Taking Care of Scratches
First off, determine the extent of scratching your hardwood floor has. Minor scratches which may be due to pets or footwear dragging on the surface may be repaired through the use of wax sticks that usually come with prefinished hardwood care kits. Other minor scratches can also be repaired by using a q-tip to apply the matching finish, but do so carefully as applying too much may make your little scratch repair obvious. You want to maintain the smooth perfection of your hardwood floor without any bumps or ridges.

Larger scratches and more major scratches such as those caused by moving heavy furniture (refrigerators, large consoles, etc.) should and must be only taken care of by floor care professionals, because a lot of damage has already been done by homeowners who actually do not know what they are doing. In a lot of the cases, surface refinishing will not work, and there is nothing else to do but replace the damaged board. This is the reason why it's a good idea to keep spare boards handy.