The Easy Way To Identify Your Hardwood Floor Finish (& Choose The Best Polish)

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For home buyers, designers, and owners, hardwood floors are both desirable and practical. Easy to clean and timelessly beautiful, wood floors bring the wow factor to any home, but they're susceptible to wear and tear, since they're getting walked on every day by you, your pets, and your guests. To keep your floors looking brand new, you need to maintain their finish — the protective coating that seals the wood surface.

While there are a variety of floor finishes, most will fall into two categories: penetrating finish and surface finish. Penetrating finish is applied to unfinished solid hardwood flooring, seeping into the wood grain before being coated in floor wax, which gives the floor a matte or satin look. Surface finishes, which include polyurethane, a synthetic resin, are applied to pre-finished solid hardwood flooring and typically have a gloss or semi-gloss sheen. If you're not sure what kind of finish you have, you can test your floors with only a few drops of water.

You may be able to guess what kind of finish you have just by looking. Since a penetrating finish is topped with wax, the wood will have a natural, "waxy" appearance, while a surface finish will appear shinier. Eyes alone aren't a good determiner, however.

In an inconspicuous part of your home, such as the back of a closet, dribble a few drops of water on the floor. After 10 minutes, you'll know if your floor not been sealed, a.k.a if it has a waxed finish. If the floor has a penetrating, wax-topped finish, the water will absorb into the wood, leaving white spots or pale blotches — this discoloration comes from the moisture getting trapped beneath the wax surface and is easy to buff out. On a floor with a surface finish, the water will remain beaded and unabsorbed. Once you've determined the floor's finish, you can move on to polishing out any damage or wear, which will bring your old hardwood floor back to life.

Before you even think about polishing your floors, it's important to deep clean them. Deep cleaning clears up any residue or particles that might dull or scratch your floor when you polish. To begin your deep clean, wipe down the floors with a damp microfiber mop, such as the Bona Premium Sweep & Clean Mop. Make sure to mop under and around furniture, moving big pieces if necessary. Then, repeat the process, this time using a hardwood floor cleaner. Dry the floor with a microfiber cloth as you move from room to room, cleaning until your entire house is refreshed.

With your wood floor properly cleaned, you can now polish it. Based on your water droplet test, you can pick a polish that matches your floor's finish, using a water-based polish for surface finishes like polyurethane and a wax polish for penetrating finishes. Polish application is intuitive, but make sure you follow the directions for your specific product and buff out the polish when finished. Through regular polishing, you can keep your wood flooring looking like new.