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Pet Stains on Hardwood Flooring

Pet Stains

I get one of those calls at least once a week... I have some stains in the corner of my living room, can you guys fix it somehow?

This is never easy to answer.

Usually I will say: "absolutely, yes, we can!", but if a culprit is your dog or cat, than we may have a bit of a problem. Such stain can not be just sanded out, like you would scratches. To get rid of this type of serious damage you need to get serious.

Why?

Because, just like a water damage that was left unattended, a pet-stain (especially one that "accumulated" the moisture over time) runs deep into the wood and stays there.

You can easily spot the damage, as it will turn the wood dark, in some cases black, like in the picture below:

Not very pretty, is it? This is after the floor was sanded to the bare wood. See that nasty black spot? That's one stain that can't be just "sanded off" with the sander machine.

Here is one more, from the same house, this one is by the front door and is a bit smaller, but still is very visible:

As you can see, those dog stains will not go away with just sanding. If you want to get rid of them for good, you need to replace the damaged boards.

Not everyone wants to do that however. Some people, in older houses with original floors refrain from board replacement, as it may not be possible to match the species and size of the boards. Usually we can do that, but sometimes the matching style and species is just no longer available; the only solution is to have the boards custom milled and that means... a big price tag.

Solution for Pet Stains on Hardwood Flooring

Majority of homeowners faced with a dog stain problems on their hardwood floors, opt for sanding and refinishing. In order to make it work, they are choosing a darker stain that will mask the stain and make it a lot less visible.

Here you have the same pet stain from the first picture above, "stained" over with the wood color.

Yes, you can see the spot, if you know where to look. It is however a lot less noticeable. Take a look:

As you can see, the darker area at the top of the above picture is the original pet stain that we just couldn't "sand out"; it is exactly the same as the dark board (not damaged by pets), lower in the picture. This picture shows a wood floor with one coat of dark stain and one coat of varnish.

Keeping your expectations real...

I know that some people do expect a perfect floor once we are done with it, and 9 out of 10 times we really can, but this one issue simply can not be fix with sanding.

If you are not sure what can and cannot be done to revitalize your hardwood floor, please give us a call, we will be happy to answer any questions you may have. We can be reached at 705-721-1082 or you can book an estimate by filling out the form on this page.

If you are looking for dark stain hardwood flooring ideas, take a look at this pinterest.com board.

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