My sink decided I needed to take the day off from my other chores and do some plumbing. I had to pull everything out from under it, and unbeknownst to me, a bottle of Windex got knocked over and dribbled on the floor for quite some time. The next day when I was putting everything back, I noticed the spot. Oddly enough, it dissolved the finish and left a black spot on the wood underneath. I'm pretty sure that Windex has ammonia in it, which would definitely explain why the wood darkened. I've never heard of it being used to strip a finish. If you're yawning you better go now…
The backstory is we bought this prior drug house as a fixer upper and also is a place we wouldn't care too much when our kids damaged something. It has three inch wide wood flooring which is yellow and softish feeling. It definitely has two different finishes on it. I can tell that because somebody decided to topcoat the original finish, or what I should say is the bottom finish, and didn't bother removing food droppings or dirty footprints. It's disgusting. We've been planning to replace the entire thing, but it may be very easy to strip it and clean up the wood.
So having just stripped and re-shellac'd A drafting table, I decided to use the denatured alcohol I had handy on another location to see what it would do. With some gentle scrubbing and a stripping pad, the finish came right off. Now obviously alcohol will strip shellac and I've heard that if it sits for a while it'll at least soften varnish. But at this point I'm at a loss without further experimentation, which is ugly. Perhaps one of you folks who knows a lot more about finishing wood floors than I do would chime in and educate me. Whatever the finish is, it's somewhat soft and appears to be softening. There is dirt embedded in it in the high traffic areas. At least I think it's in The top layer and not between, but who knows. The house was original in 1991, and I'd bet the floor was 'redone' about a decade ago.
Thank you in advance for your time,
Roswell
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Here's where the windex ate the finish and I scraped off the goop. You can clearly see the original finish under the dirty one. That an the amazing 'value' in this place cough
This is the proposed test spot before:
Immediately after (still wet)
And once dry
The backstory is we bought this prior drug house as a fixer upper and also is a place we wouldn't care too much when our kids damaged something. It has three inch wide wood flooring which is yellow and softish feeling. It definitely has two different finishes on it. I can tell that because somebody decided to topcoat the original finish, or what I should say is the bottom finish, and didn't bother removing food droppings or dirty footprints. It's disgusting. We've been planning to replace the entire thing, but it may be very easy to strip it and clean up the wood.
So having just stripped and re-shellac'd A drafting table, I decided to use the denatured alcohol I had handy on another location to see what it would do. With some gentle scrubbing and a stripping pad, the finish came right off. Now obviously alcohol will strip shellac and I've heard that if it sits for a while it'll at least soften varnish. But at this point I'm at a loss without further experimentation, which is ugly. Perhaps one of you folks who knows a lot more about finishing wood floors than I do would chime in and educate me. Whatever the finish is, it's somewhat soft and appears to be softening. There is dirt embedded in it in the high traffic areas. At least I think it's in The top layer and not between, but who knows. The house was original in 1991, and I'd bet the floor was 'redone' about a decade ago.
Thank you in advance for your time,
Roswell
-
Here's where the windex ate the finish and I scraped off the goop. You can clearly see the original finish under the dirty one. That an the amazing 'value' in this place cough
This is the proposed test spot before:
Immediately after (still wet)
And once dry