Q: We recently bought a small condominium that has an engineered (5 layer) maple hardwood floor. Someone attempted to refinish the original satin finish with a high gloss polyurethane. The shiny top layer is peeling off in sheets all over the floor. My question is, is there any way to “buff” off the shiny coat and get back to the original satin finish WITHOUT having to sand and re-finish the entire floor?
The places where the new shiny coat have peeled off reveal a perfectly fine original satin finish which is what we would like to get back. Thanks.
A: I can’t see buffing this off. For example, if you used a car paint finish buffer you would face the risk of flakes of polyurethane getting under the pad and scratching the original finish. Unless you can patiently peel off the gloss coating a situation like this generally requires totally sanding the floor.
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