Scratches, dents, and gouges

Some floors are more delicate than others — drop something and at best you get a dent. Worse is when it has a sharp edge that gouges a scratch, and that's very visible. Especially if your place gets a lot of natural light. Fortunately there are ways to fix it, or at least make the damage a lot less noticeable.

There are countless floor repair kits out there. They typically differ in wax colors and the soldering iron — the tip is what you use to pick up and apply the melted wax. They also vary in the scraper/smoothing tool, which you use to prep the spot and remove excess wax. You'll also want something for buffing afterward so the repaired area blends into the surroundings.

The trickiest repairs are those with sharp, defined edges. A scratch usually has a darker border than the surrounding floor color. You need to carefully deal with that first, then mix the right shade using the colored and clear waxes so it matches. Mixing is a bit of an art — takes trial and error to find the right combo for your floors. Minor dents can often be fixed with clear wax alone. After applying, let the spot set for a bit, then scrape off the excess flush with the surface. After a few minutes, give it a buff — it looks much better.

I honestly didn't expect the results to be this good. For a few hundred crowns it's a great way to keep your floors looking like new. If you're handy, it's almost undetectable — unless you're crawling on the floor with a flashlight, in which case the sheen is ever so slightly off.