Spot-refinishing a hardwood floor: possible? Sensible?

General Questions
#1

Long story short, we have hardwood floors everywhere in our condo except the bathrooms. They are perfectly fine except for a couple of spots in the kitchen (near the fridge and around the sink/dishwasher), where the finish is stripping off in some spots.

Is it possible to spot-refinish a wood floor, or will the refinished spots inevitably look a different color from the rest of the flooring? I’d hate to have to redo the whole damn condo just because of a few spots in the kitchen. I guess we could do the kitchen floor in some other material, but that sounds like a PITA too. Are there other options I’m not thinking about?

(None of this is urgent or going to happen anytime soon; I’m just pondering it.)

#2

I’m inclined to think that there’d be a noticeable difference, but if it’s bare, unstained wood with a poly coating, it might not be that bad. But generally you have to sand off the old finish, and that will reveal new wood that will take a while to fade to the same color as the rest of the floor.

#3

Victor hardwood flooring. I’ve used them for tricky jobs in the past and they’ve ways come through for my customers.

#4

Is whatever caused damage to the floor fixed? Is it only going to happen again? If so why worry about a perfect match?

This is a site finished floor, or is it pre finished? All smooth, with no bevelled edges -site finished. Bevelled edges - pre-finished. If pre-finished the usual process is to just replace the affected area - assuming there is left over flooring. Factory finishes are completely different animals and cannot be matched on site - the whole floor can be aggressively sanded and site finished though.

Site finished hardwood can be spot finished. It is very hard to get a perfect match, and certain hardwoods have more dramatic colour changes due to ageing than others. Stain can complicate matters. It is very important to use the same finish and preparation (stain, penetrating oil) as original. Some hardwood, like cherry, can be age darkened with a strong halogen lamp over a couple days.

It is worth it to do spot refinishing even with a poor colour match just to keep the floor protected until the time comes to refinish the whole floor.

#5

A good professional can usually do it. DIY? Probably not.

#6

If I had to guess, it’s oak, with a light stain and poly coating. There’s no specific reason that I know of why the finish is coming off where it is, except that the areas in question get wet more often (no leaks or anything that I know of). Good point about a poor color match serving a purpose in any case. From your description, I’d guess it was site-finished – we didn’t do the work (it likely dates back to the condo conversion, circa 2003). So we don’t have any spare materials, and judging from some of the other experiences we’ve had with things that were done at the time of the condo conversion (notably plumbing…don’t ask!), at least some of the rehab was done on the cheap.

So yeah, one of these days when our cash reserves are built back up a bit after the HVAC work we just had done, we should have someone come take a look. Maybe a new coat of poly would be helpful too. Trust me, we are not handy people (and my crappy lungs tend not to like fumes and dust anyway), so this would not be a DIY job!

#7

I’ve attempted it in the past. Luckily the pros were able to repair my handiwork:).

It’s good to know your limits. For me it’s tile and auto paint.

#8

Unfortunately, looks like they’re no longer an option.

#9

One thing, though, is if the existing color was put down years ago, there’s bound to have been fading. In that case, the color match will not be as good, but it should get better over time.