I'm nearing completion of a major home addition. New hardwood floors were installed throughout the new addition, along with re-sanding and finishing the existing floors in the original part of the house.

Upon completion, I found a few issues with the floors that were noticeable from afar -- namely, some dings they'd patched but still stand out against the dark finish (likely from the other contractors working in the space between the time the floors were installed and first two coats and them coming back to do the last coat - appears some debris got underneath the covers they'd laid to protect the floors); several decent-sized "smudges" that apparently were beneath the finish; and a couple bits of paint that they'd missed when doing the final cleanup. All of these were in highly visible areas, otherwise, I'd have just let them go.

The hardwood floor rep said the only way to fix the dings is to re-sand (which I'd prefer not to do if possible), but that the "smudges" and paint can be remedied by re-buffing and doing an extra coat in affected rooms. He offered as a "compromise" to re-buff and re-coat the family/room living room, which they did. And it looks good.

They were then going to re-coat just the hallways where the paint spots were, last Friday before Memorial Day. I'd asked for them to let me know when they were coming so that I could be there, but when I returned home, they'd already been there.

To my surprise, rather than re-coating an entire area as planned, they'd done patches of a couple boards here and there in several rooms in the house -- including in a highly visible spot in the newly-recoated kitchen/family room! The patches are visible, in some cases more than others.

And to back up, the hardwood floor business owner had told me patching a board or two was a concern -- likely to stand out -- which is why he hadn't recommended doing the patch in the first place. I'm still trying to find out why his team went ahead and did the patches instead of the plan he and I'd discussed.

It's a huge bummer to have all these patches in brand-new hardwood floors before we've even spent a single day living int hem.

My question to the group is:

- What is the best way to fix this? Can the affected rooms be re-buffed and re-coated? Would that even out the patch to blend in with the rest of the floors or will the patched area still stand out as it will still have an extra coat on it?

- If they end up doing another extra coat on the kitchen/family room, that room would have 5 coats vs. the 3 in the hallway/living room that butt up against it. I'm guessing that wouldn't be a huge issue, given that there is a delineation between the rooms, even though they are open to one another.

Any suggestions/advice you can give are appreciated!