We noticed our first major scratch on the new floor as the stone work sub was cleaning up the other day.  We’re not sure if his equipment was the culprit, since there have been several subs in and out of the house recently, but it was upsetting regardless.  And to add salt to the wound, the scratch was in a spot that would require pulling up most of the room’s flooring to replace.

But before I began hyperventilating, I decided to see if I could eliminate some of the effect with a quick spit shine.  Literally.  Hey, the house is under construction still (hence the scratch amplifying white dust) and that’s all I had!  But as you can see it already looked much better.

After this photo, I also rubbed my thumbnail over the edges to remove any fibers sticking up and that made it even better.  I’m sure that once I can attack it with some Old English you’ll never even know it was there.  You can’t even feel the scratch when you run your finger across it, so it’s not as bad as I initially thought.

There are a few spots in the house that we know the edge of the board is chipped because we saw it as we were on floor level installing it, but at walking height you’d probably never notice them.  We plan to put some clear silicone in those spots as we find them again, but they shouldn’t cause any major issues now that there is support around them from the adjoining board.

This is exactly why we chose this material.  We have large, very active dogs.  We have guests over.  Life happens.  I’m sure I’ll see the little lumps and bumps as we move in and start living on the floor, but that will be ok.  It shows that we’re living our life, not just ‘presenting’ an ideal.  And let’s face it, those little spots just give me a reason to go buy a new rug to cover it.  And that’s just fine by me. 🙂