Just part of hardwood floor can be refinished if perfection not the goal
A how-to guru advises a reader on repairing or refinishing panels on a hardwood floor that have been damaged.
A few exposed panels in my hardwood floor have been damaged from the sun, and the shellac has begun to peel off. The panels that have been under a rug since Day 1 are in perfect condition. I do not plan on ever removing the rug except to replace it with another one. Is there any way I can repair just those few panels? I’ve been told that I would have to redo the whole floor because otherwise the panels wouldn’t match.
Whether it’s possible to refinish just a few boards depends on the level of perfection you require. A professional floor finisher needs to create a uniform look — that’s the definition of a professional job — and to do that, the whole floor would need to be refinished.
But it is possible to refinish just a few boards if you are willing to accept that they might appear shinier or a slightly different colour than the surrounding boards, at least until the new finish gets scuffed up enough to blend in.
Apply painter’s tape along the edges of boards you do not want to refinish and, by hand, sand the damaged surface enough to remove all the loose bits of finish and scuff up areas where the finish is intact. Try not to sand down to bare wood so you don’t have to face the challenge of staining the wood to match the surrounding colour.
You call the existing finish “shellac.” Although that word is sometimes used to describe any clear finish, technically it is a specific kind made from the crust exuded by a type of scale insect, plus alcohol. The alcohol dissolves the crust, allowing you to spread the finish with a brush. Then the alcohol evaporates, leaving a thin film of the crust. Although it is reasonably durable, especially if you build up thickness with several layers, it is not as hardy as varnish, polyurethane or acrylic, the modern finishes that have almost completely replaced shellac as a floor finish.
That said, shellac would be a good choice for spot-refinishing your floor. It sticks to virtually anything, so you wouldn’t need to figure out what kind of finish is on your floor now. Brush on one layer, let that dry, then add a second and possibly a third. Because the alcohol in shellac dissolves previous layers, the trick in applying multiple layers is to avoid brushing back and forth. Instead, go over each area only once, pulling your brush in a single direction. Between coats, keep the brush tightly wrapped in plastic or clean it in denatured alcohol.