Sally Hansen No Chip 10-day nail varnish #33

On Saturday I received just the best present from my clever and thoughtful friend Kim: it was a nail polish color named "Still Sanding." Now, the english-major segment of my brain reacted first because it knew this was a beautiful, two-word poem, turning up in a prosaic place. Think of all the references packed into those two tiny words - the sand color of the polish, the pun on 'still standing' and the cheeky riff on my chosen profession, at which I was, indeed, still standing and sanding. I tell you, it was like finding glitter in the phone book. But, enough of that. The sander goddess half of my brain reacted next and that is the response that matters here. I realized that we should draw more parallels between flooring finishing and nail polishing. Be patient - this will be helpful in just a moment.

Many, many customers call Pete's every week asking if there is a quick fix for the catastrophic scratch, stain or gouge they have just found in their floor finish. It is often a renter or a delivery service and their voices are urgent and a little panicked. They are sure we have a magic floor marker or filler that they can rub on the problem and make it blend into the surrounding floor. Well sure, panic will do that to you - make you believe that the rest of us are witholding the easy fix that will make your problems go away. But people! Un-gouging a floor is like fixing a chip in your $40 manicure or the keyed line on your shiny new car: you can't just fill it in with a little color. It took time and effort to build up the layers of finish on that floor. When you drag a refrigerator across it, it scratches through all the layers and down into the wood. To make it look like it never happened, the finish has to be taken down to bare wood, and then the wood below needs to be scraped or sanded until the scratch is gone. And because wood has a distinct grain, you need to extend your mending to include every whole floorboard that is touched by the flaw; if you stop your sanding in the middle of a board, it won't blend with the surrounding floor.

I know this isn't what you want to hear. Your security deposit is hanging in the balance. Or the wrath of your mom. I can definitely show you how to get the damage out and there is no doubt you are capable of fixing it. But if you want it done right, it won't be quick.

1. Use blue painter's tape to outline the area with the flaw, taping only along board edges as we've done in the photo at right.

2. Using a sander or a scraper, remove all of the finish inside the blue tape. I find that it is very easy to chew through the tape with a sander, so I use the machine up to an inch from the tape, and delicately hand-scrape up to the tape edge.

3. Hand sand the clean floor with 120 grit to remove all traces of machine marks (yes, a scraper counts as a machine).

4. Apply three layers of the same finish that is on the surrounding floor. For oil-based finishes, this can take up to three days. Remove the tape as soon as you finish the first coat - even painter's tape can sometimes react with finishes and get really stuck.