Reckless renovation
June 8, 2009, 6:56 am

After 20 years of foot and paw traffic, our dining room floor was looking shabby. The original teak parquet had accumulated countless scratches and water stains, and faded to a dull lifeless color.

Replacing the floor would be too expensive (and teak hardwood parquet is no longer available), so I considered refinishing the wood.

Unfortunately, consulting the manufacturer's original product literature was discouraging - "Never sand or refinish the parquet tiles", it admonished.

Not one to blindly follow instructions, I figured I had nothing to lose and grabbed a belt sander, carefully grinding away the topmost layers of wax, stains, and scratches. (Using a floor or drum sander would have likely destroyed the pieced tiles.)

A few days of sanding, re-staining, and 2 coats of polyurethane did the trick. Sometimes it pays to forge ahead and ignore those words of advice from the experts.

Hopefully, we'll get another 20 years of use!