Question:
It’s me AGAIN. Yesterday my guy put the third coat of polyurethane on – a very thick coat of satin – and I absolutely HATE the way it looks. I asked for satin instead of semigloss, and he wanted to do a real thick layer to reduce any screening scratches that appeared; it all sounded very logical, but what really astonished me was to come home and see a floor that looks like a totally fake plastic linoleum floor, which totally defeats the purpose of all the trouble and expense I went to to put in a natural solid wood floor. I don’t know what to do now. I am probably stuck with it because I need to sell the house in the next month or two and I don’t have time to fool around with this; hopefully the prospective buyers won’t be as grossed out as i am by it – but is this because it’s such a thick layer? How do I avoid this in the future?
thanks
Debbie
Answer:
Dear Debbie
Quite possibly you had been expecting less of a film on the floor when you were seeing the rather thin coats of sealer. And, there are a lot of brands of satin finish poly, some more appealing than others. I have always (or at least for the last 15 years) used the Fabulon Brand satin poly. It has a nice glow to it, but I think, does not make the floor look like plastic. And I hate to say this but for easy floor maintenance you really do need at least 3 MODERATE coats of poly on a wood floor.
I would never try to apply more than 500 square feet per gal of any oil based poly finish. Too thick a coat will take months to cure hard, and this can weaken the finish. Your floor contractors methods of using the sealer are questionable in my opinion. I’ll bet if you had taken the time to actually see some of his jobs, you might have not chosen him. Be sure to read my Hiring Contractors articles in the How to section of this web site. Just because the guy does High End work, doesn’t mean a thing. Even wealthy folks can be fooled. Use your own judgment.
Oh, and here are a couple of pics of some of my satin poly’d floors. One with a stain and one with just the poly. Does your floor look anything like this ?
As always your Most humble servant, Joseph, the Wood Floor Doctor.