LESLIE: Marilyn in Louisiana, you’ve got The Money Pit. How can we help you today?
MARILYN: Hello. I have moved into an old home that has unfinished and some finished wooden floors that were carpeted. Unfortunately, in taking that carpet up, former pets that were here have left their mark all over the floors.
TOM: Oh, no.
MARILYN: There are stains and there is a dreadful, dreadful odor throughout the house. The dogs that I have brought in have continued that process and now have to live outside. My question is: what do I do? What can I do to get the odor out of these wooden floors?
TOM: What I would do, Marilyn, is I would sand the floors. This is the one time where I think it makes a lot of sense to do a thorough sanding of these floors.
LESLIE: Yeah. You’ve got to completely refinish.
TOM: Yeah, especially if you’re saying that some of the floors were unfinished to begin with. So I would sand all the hardwood floors to take off some material, vacuum up that sawdust and then I would add three coats of polyurethane.
Now, I’m sorry, let me back up. Before you polyurethane, if they’re still stained, then I would add some wood stain to the floor to darken the color a little bit and hide any of those remaining marks. There are even natural staining options. Because if you try to go totally natural, the stains will obviously show up. But if you add – it’s like a slight tinting to – a tinted stain. Like, say, one of the colors that I use a lot is called Early American, which is like a very light, brown color. You know, that looks really nice and does hide some of those stains that could be in the wood. And then add the three coats of urethane.
LESLIE: A big trend is dark gray, almost even like an ebonized wood floor. Dark wood floors, even if it’s a super-dark chocolate or almost on the black/gray scale, really are impactful and beautiful and that could hide a lot, as well.
TOM: Yeah. And well, that’s a good point. You could – you don’t have to go dark is what I’m trying to say. You could just go just very fairly lightly. But from there, I think you’ll be good to go. I think once you put the urethane coating on it, you’ll no longer have the odor issues.
MARILYN: Love your show. Thank you so much.
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