What Have I Done?

I'm all about DIY home projects, and I've been lucky that I haven't had that many mishaps ... until now. And, oh boy, was this a costly mishap.

Last February we replaced our carpets with bamboo wood flooring. I absolutely love this floor. It is so easy to clean. I just dust mop it, and clean it with Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner. What I have learned over the last 19 months after we had it installed is that A) my cats drool, and B) it shows. Our home has a lot of natural lighting so I notice it. It could also be because I'm totally OCD, so I'm cleaning the floors like every day. It was getting old.

My solution to this problem was to put a top coat of something on it. I really should of done a little bit more research before I did what I did. I was in Lowe's and came across Bona Hardwood Floor Polish. Yes! This is exactly what I wanted! I was looking for a polish, not a wax. I thought it was similar to a wipe on product such as Pledge that comes back off it you clean it.

I followed the instructions to a T. I did a small test area which came out perfect. I then prepped the hallway and big room, and got to work. I ended up putting two coats down over a two day period. The result ... I was devastated. I majorly effed up. Even though I cleaned the floors to remove all the cat hair, etc. there was cat hair embedded in a few spots, some areas were hazy, and in the hallway one monster cat decided to walk on it while it was wet so I had paw marks.  Lovely.

Thinking it was like a polish I tried to wipe it off. And wipe, and wipe, and scrub, and scrub, and scrub. After about 15 minutes I had about a 3x3 area done, like 9 square feet. I had 402 square feet left to go.

Top with Polish, Bottom without Polish

I showed the bottle to Chad, and handed him a knife to stab me to death. Surprisingly enough he didn't want to kill me. He felt I was doing a good enough job of beating myself up about it. That's why I love this man. Then he tells me my problem is that the bottle, although it says "Polish" is actually a urethane, also known as  a WAX! I'm really shocked he didn't want to kill me now.

I did the only thing I could do. I drowned myself in chocolate, and called a pro. Two days, three bottles of "polish" remover, and a whopping $500 later our floor is back to what it use to look like.

Lesson learned. Everyone's luck runs out eventually, and polish is not always a freaking polish. That was an expensive lesson.