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I was thinking some transparent filler maybe, and grinding/polishing it down? There's some varnish on the wood anyway.
If you are renting and have no practical skills to actually fix this, just leave it alone. You are likely to fuck up the floor worse trying to do these home remedies.
I'll be damned, it actually worked pretty well on the test dent for now, apparently! I'll see how it looks after drying out tomorrow, and do it for the rest then!
Thanks for the warning, I respect that - but this video seems pretty straightforward, I'm about to try it on one of those dents:
First things first: put real feet on your couch so youβre not doing more damage.
The broader the better.
Some people already talked about ironing and it can make a difference but you gotta get down to the wood surface with sandpaper, learn how to iron wood then successfully actually do it.
Dents as big as these would require multiple passes with the iron over time.
Your real best bet would be to call a handyman or more likely a flooring place and have them give you an estimate on repair. Theyβll be able to tell you if you have some kind of tongue in groove, roll or actual hardwood floor and explain what your options are. Youβll also know how much youβre gonna be paying to get whatever the landlord is holding back from them.
If you do call someone out there, find out what they charge for an estimate and pay them more on top of it in cash. People hate giving estimates because itβs someone shopping around whoβs gonna try to get them down to the lowest price and has no consideration for their expertise and experience. Being willing to pay in cash and then some cements you as a customer, not a looky-loo.
You sure that's hard wood? You sure it's not laminate designed to look like hard wood?
Step one to fixing it would be actually finding out what it is.
Nah, that's just oak. Oak floors do this sometimes.
Looks like linoleum lol
Linoleum is kind of awesome.
Hell no, it looks terrible so quickly. The patterns to make it look like "wood" or whatever are at most a millimeter deep, so enough usage and suddenly you have a worn out blank spot in your giant piece of shit plastic floor.
It outgasses forever, you're funding the fossil fuel industry, it looks and feels like shit, and you'll throw it out in 5-10yrs.
Tldr, fuck linoleum, it is inferior in all but one metric: water resistance.
What? One of linoleum's benefits is not off gassing and not being made from fossil fuels. Are you thinking of vinyl?
I've heard & seen vinyl and linoleum used interchangeably over a lifetime, and I don't believe the original recipe is still manufactured so far as I have seen.
Even if it is still being manufactured, the vast majority of people talking about linoleum seem to mean vinyl. I'm going with the average vernacular, and still stand by all my original points re: vinyl.
Pretty bizarre if people do this. I've never heard it to mean anything but linoleum.
But a lot of people in the US use the word "turf" to specify not turf (i.e. artificial turf), so there's no reason for words to mean things.
Linoleum and vinyl are not the same thing. It does dent.
I haven't seen the original form of linoleum made it installed anywhere on any jobsite I've ever worked.
I realize the term has been co-opted by the plastics industry, but if you're specifying the original linseed oil recipe from the 1870s, you need to specify that.
Vinyl and linoleum have been interchangeable terms in modern parlance for several lifetimes at this point.
Depends on the country I suppose Vinyl is much softer than linoleum, which is why linoleum is used everywhere in public buildings like schools and hospitals etc. Vinyl is used in your bedroom
Leave them. The dents tell the story of your house.
I'm renting a flat π and the story would be the one of my neglect, and me having to pay off the landlord, it's not my favorite one
Ah, a tale as old as time.
Cinderella and the Hardwood Floor
I lol'ed
There's the "right" way and then there's what's practical. Here's the "right" way:
Rough sand the entire floor to wood. Fill the voids with Starbond CA glue of the appropriate color, low viscosity for leveling. Fine sand the entire floor. Refinish with oil-based polyurathane.
If you know what you're doing then this will take three days, most of it dry time. If you don't know what you're doing then one way or another you'll destroy the floor during rough sanding.
Thanks for that expert advice - let's consider the scenario where I don't know what I'm doing, and I just want to avoid my landlord deducting too much from the deposit when I move out, what would you recommend?
In that case, I would recommend using your time machine to go back in time and buying something to protect the floor from the sofa.
Short of sanding the floor down, there's really not a lot that you can do. The dents and dings aren't going to pop back out; it's not like auto repair where you can use a suction cup to pup them back up. Sanding the floor down is expensive; you're looking at thousands of dollars to have it done by a professional that will do it correctly. Doing it yourself is... not a great idea, unless you are a perfectionist and have a pretty good idea of what you're doing. Even then, renting the machines--or buying!--and buying the needed sandpaper, CA glue, and poly finish (assuming you want to use poly; I have other finishes that I prefer, but poly is fast and usually non-toxic) may well be more than your deposit.
The argument that you're going to want to make is that this is expected wear and tear; that might fly with your landlord, it might not. You could make a small-claims case out of it, and you might be able to win that. Or you might not, and then you'd be out your deposit, plus the cost of filing a small-claims case.
I'm not an expert, just a hobbyist.
If it's actual hardwood then, if you try to fix this, you'll almost certainly end up doing more damage. An expert probably won't touch any job for less than $750 because they're experienced artists as well as technicians.
The best case scenario is it's not true hardwood, instead wood veneer tongue and groove where pieces are easily replaced... which starts by removing all the baseboards and pieces of floor from the edge to the piece that needs replaced. Anyone could easily learn to do that. But, is it worth the time and effort for a couple hundred bucks?
Probably the best thing to do now is to prevent any more damage. That could be as simple as some 1/4 plywood between the legs and the floor. A quality rug is more expensive and would also work.
Cover it with a rug
I would agree, but I'm afraid my landlord will look under that rug at some point
Depending on the state you live in, and whether the lease specifically mentioned taking special care of the hardwood floors, this could very well be considered regular wear and tear. There does not appear to be intentional damage here.
The landlord will also need to provide documentation prior to getting work done if they want you to cover the bill, at which point youβll have the option to contest it.
Check out tenant rights for your state to verify. Hopefully, youβll also be more careful with hardwood floors in the future. Couches on wheels are no-bueno.
Depending on the state you live in
Or country...
You're screwed, dude. That's nothing you can easily fix. Most tips in this threat require you to do the whole room, as just fixing this one spot will most likely be pretty obvious.
Next time, try to use something broader and softer than a sheet of paper to dampen your couch's feet - especially on wooden floor.
You're screwed dude
Harsh, but from what I see I agree, fixing it might be harder than redoing it, and covering it up if it looks good is the easiest solution you have
Look for other advice for repairing them, but making your couch feet bigger and softer with tennis balls or felt should prevent it from worsening.
Make the dents everywhere, and no one will know
Pull the boards out and swap them with edge boards.
First of all change out the feet to ones with a flat base so you don't do more damage.
Steam might be able to fix those. But I don't know if that would work with varnish on the wood.
Thanks for putting me on this path, I looked up a video where they put small holes in the varnish, wet it for a couple of hours, then steam it through a cloth, and it worked pretty well on a test dent! I'll wait and see how it looks tomorrow after drying out and maybe move on to the rest!
You might have helped me save a lot of money!
I tried letting some water sit for some hours in one dent, to see if the wood would expand - but nothing happened. I guess that would rule out steam, unless I remove the varnish in the dents first?
Water alone won't help much, using steam can. Putting a damp towel down and using an iron over the problem areas can sometimes affect the dents a variable amount.
Depending on how good the varnish is, that will determine how well it works.
That sounds like a fun thing to improvise, thanks, I'll try it!
You have to remove the varnish by sanding first, then try to iron the floor. There may be poor contact in the middle so try ironing the other edges.
Other than that, you are gonna have to get new boards installed.
I found a video where they put small holes in the varnish with a knife, then let it sit wet for a couple of hours, then steam it through a towel, and it worked pretty well on a test dent!
The differences between dents and craters is that dents merely compress the wood, without damaging the fibers, while craters break and destroy fibers. Dents can be repairing by expanding the wood, but craters aren't fixable.
Yeah, OP wants to work over a large are, not just where the dents are.
Not a professional but they look kind of deep and big might need to be replaced or covered with a rug (we won't tell anyone they're there)
I'm not an expert but:
Resurfacing might fix this if it is solid hardwood, since you are essentially sanding down a layer and refinishing the new top layer. The dents look kind of deep, though, and may require extra sanding to take the wood down far enough.
If the landlord decides to be a dick, I would think you could respond that the hardwood wasn't hard afterall, so best to just call it a day.