Wood Floors!?! - Aurora,CO

A "quick" fix to re-sanding and re-finishing floors is to use a contractor like Mr. Sandless. They use a chemical to strip the top layer of your varnish, then they put down a new water based finish. They can do the whole house in one day, and it is comparatively inexpensive. No mess, no dust, no lingering smells.

We did our apartment 3 years ago, and its holding up really well. See if there's a contractor near you.

Good luck to you and yours,
F. B.

You gotta sand it and refinish.
The grime is locked in and under the product.
I use Bona too on our wood floors. BUT, I made sure to completely clean the floors first, because I knew that once I put the Bona on it, the grime would then be in and under the product.

Grime can be intermingled with the wood grain too, not just a surface grime sitting on the surface. Thus, sanding it would remove that layer of wood, in which the grime is settled into.

Have a professional do it. Or do it yourself. But it is a lot of work.
Or you can opt to re-Varathane it, once you clean it and sand it.
But don't get any dust in it as you Varathane it, or you will get dust stuck into that, too.

If the dirt is under the finish, the only solution is to sand and refinish them.

Something most folks don't know... when you have natural wood floors, the finish is never completely "dry" unless they are engineered. So, the finish is always a little bit "tacky" and can be damaged/scratched. For this reason, flooring professional recommend that you do not "scrub" your floors every week... it removes layers of the finish and leaves the finish "wet" to attract more dust.

What should you do? Call a contractor and have the floors sanded and refinished. It's a mess and a pain, but you'll be very happy with the results!

I'm not sure this would work but try murphys oil soap for wood. That stuff works on anything including vinyl.

Amonia may get the Bona off. A strong solution of amonia water, be sure to ventelate the room the fumes are strong and not good. Try it in an area that it won't be too noticeable to see if it will work.

I think, like some of the other posters, that you need to get the floors redone.

Before you do that, you need to carefully research the finishes so that you are successful after you pay all this money.

Some finishes really shine, but they are a lot of work to maintain. Some finishes are easy to maintain, but don't shine as much. To ME, the most important thing to know is exactly what should and shouldn't be used to clean the floor. You need to talk to real flooring experts (not the folks here, sorry!) to find out exactly what you should be doing and choosing.

I have to wonder if the reason you have the problem you have now is because of the products you have used on the floor. If you don't really learn what you need to learn, you may end up doing this again after you get your floors redone, just to be in the same mess all over again.

If you plan to sell your house in the future, I would try to choose a finish that will really stand up to a lot of floor traffic and isn't too hard to maintain.

By the way, I'll be doing the exact same thing as I am recommending to you with my own house whenever we decide to sell it. When we bought our house, the floor was a wreck from the previous owners. We chose not to address it then because we needed to put on a new roof (smile!) We tend to have the "pretty stuff" fixed for selling the house instead of enjoying ourselves (sigh!)

Good luck!
Dawn

Look into Holloway House floor products. They make a concentrated floor cleaner that is amazing. Also the Quick Floor Shine is great for sprucing things up.