Before shelling out the big bucks for a professional job on a floor that needed refinishing before you moved in, try sanding with a small belt sander. To get a consistent look, sand the entire floor lightly enough to eliminate the spots. Use a 40 grit paper, followed by a 80 or 100 grit. Put a few light coats of water-based floor poly over the top using a foam brush. Use a matte finish to draw less attention as opposed to a gloss. I have touched up our floors this way in high wear areas. It is a fairly quick and inexpensive way to give them a new look.

Hot Rod, I know they usually do much better work than this, so I hate to be so picky regarding the trim pieces. Maybe there are reasons why. I hope to see him on Monday. On Friday, one of his cows was in labor and died. He had to cut the calf out, but it died too. He lost a lot of money that day with the animals' deaths. No drugs for him, he is just busy. Ranching is tough work, and doesn't pay well, but we consumers need small ranches to stay in business or the big corporations take over ranch land and increase prices. When the cabinet maker made his own floor trim for my kitchen 7-8 years ago, we noticed a year later than one small side cabinet never had trim installed. We could not match it of course. When I mentioned it to the cabinet maker last week, he made the trim, stained it, and installed it free. After 7-8 years! Oklahoma just voted to let medical marijuana be legal a few months ago. You should try teaching small children whose parents use or did use drugs. I will say though, that teaching a child with fetal alcohol syndrome is much more difficult than teaching a child who was born addicted to cocaine or any other drug...and alcohol is legal! mmmm12COzone5, I think if I was building a new house, there wouldn't be much of a problem. It is just remodeling, and we have to do it in stages. Too small of a job for most contractors. I can understand that, but I can't even get a plumber to call me back. I called 15 last Monday who have advertised online or who were in the Yellow Pages or on BBB website. Lumber yards gave me 3 names. Not one called back. I had explained the job I needed done when I left the message. All of them are within a 40 mile radius from my home. I guess I will have to look for handy-man type people or learn to do it myself. I am a retired teacher, but my husband is still working and driving 1.5 hrs one way to work every day, so he doesn't have much time. But, it is what it is and we live where we live! At this point, I just need to learn to DIY...myself. I know what you mean about low expectations. I am sorry you are having trouble as well. You cannot trust their references. Due diligence does not always pay off. We went through 6-8 electricians before I found one that was exceptional. When I called him the other day, he has moved. He said, "I was sick of all the drugged up, deadbeat, rednecks in this area who didn't want to pay what I had estimated." So, it goes both ways...contractors have trouble getting paid here! Maybe it is like all the uninsured people who go to hospitals and don't pay, so it winds up costing the insurance companies more so they raise my premiums. I never took the lowest bid when we were first looking for contractors in 2011, but I may as well have. My roofing installers had to have seen problems in the roof edges, but they never mentioned it. They just put new shingles on. We found nails in our pool, on the deck, in the landscaping, and in the yard for months. My siding people told me about the problems AFTER he had completed the demo, and AFTER he had installed 3/4 of the siding. So the additional cost was $8000.00 over the $38,000.00 originally bid. I understand that they had to replace about 10 ft of fascia and that parts of the old soffits had no plywood at all under the old siding, but geez, tell me sooner. He was lucky I had money set aside for something else which was my upstairs bathroom and upstairs remodel. So now, I have less money and will reuse the carpet, tub, tub surround, wood countertop and old stained trim upstairs. I had assumed it was just my rural area that caused them problems. Maybe jobs are scarce so some people say they are contractors, but are really just untrained handy-men who need money. I didn't realize that bigger cities than my little town had the same problems. Really, I can't call my town a town... Wdccruise, he said he would take care of it so I can only hope. He is really a nice guy so I think he will. I just hope taking it apart doesn't weaken it. Here is a picture of the roll top doors he made for an enormous, big screen, projection TV, entertainment center in the master bedroom years ago. He said it was in 1980, so they are 40 years old and still work well. He built the 4 large cabinet doors the other day, so they are new. There were huge speaker niches that didn't have any doors. We put adjustable shelves in them when we moved in. We stuck a desk where the projection TV was, but will probably have him add cabinets to the desk section for a TV and other electronics. It is hard to believe it is 40 years old until you seen the popcorn ceiling, gold knobs, and the pink half bath. The bedroom and the great room/kitchen wood floor will be done after all bathrooms are finished, IF I can ever find a plumber to move the plumbing in the concrete. So, does anyone know the size and length of the nails I should use on the trim?

Where did the cabinets come from. IMO most espresso cabinets were from China since there they use many different woods when doing cabinets and hence the espresso stain to blend in all the different materials. No matter what the gel stain needs to be removed . IMO you strip and paint them A huge job made worse by now needing to strip the gel too but the only way. I however suggest getting this done professionally and no matter how many you tubes show you DIY unless you have stripped and sanded and sparyed and apinted many cabinets DIY does not stand up likre afactory finish and very often does not look great. I guess since they are bathroom cabinets you could try in the smallest one to try DIY but no way in a kitchen. To have them done right will not be cheap so check out the cost of replacement too .

In the grand scheme of things this is incredibly minor. One need only read a couple pages of posts here to encounter people with really significant intractable problems, that often require complete floor replacement. After 35+ years doing wood floors I've seen my share of people unhappy with an issue, who want to do something foolish to fix a minor problem. I'm not shy about speaking up in these situations so that I can at least be on record if they force us to do something foolish. I would not try to put in a plug. It would have to be finished to match the surrounding floor and almost certainly would be more noticeable, even if it turned out as well as could be expected. Your claim that these boards shouldn't have been installed might seem valid if you're inexperienced. Most issues like this aren't apparent upon installation. Keep in mind that floors are done by humans, and exactly like you, they are imperfect. If you get a floor job that's 95% perfect, you're doing quite well.