Not all painter's tape is created equal, and certain types are not recommended for hardwood floors. It's also not meant for be left in place for weeks, just until the adjacent paint dries. Your contractor wasn't even using the tape for the right indication, i.e. a painting job. This damage is all on your contractor. You should have your floors repaired as recommended by your flooring installer, and your contractor should pick up the bill. He should have liability insurance to cover this type of problem. Here is a link that might be useful: Painter's tape

I know this is an old thread but I felt the need to reply. We used Bona Traffic 5 years ago using spice brown stain followed by the Satin poly HD 2 part system. I remember back then it stated the darker color allow 12 hour dry time which we did. Then we applied two coats of finish. I recall that it took longer then 2 weeks to fully set and get solid but eventually it did and worked out great. Fast forward we got a new house. Great wood floors. Again we refinished them using the Bona HD traffic 2 part system in semi gloss. We used a lighter finish this time which stated on the stain can stated to allow 2-3 hours drying time in normal humidity. So this time around we followed the instructions and allowed 3 hours for the stain to dry on a lovely 75 degree sunny day. I did not go heavy on the stain and I would use a dry cloth to buff out the excess as I went along. Everything looked great. We have experience with the sanding so we spent roughly 10 hours using the different grits down to the 100 grit as the final step as instructed. Floors were lovely and down to the bare unadultured wood. We then vacuumed them and got every last bit of dust off using special footies as to not contaminate the floor with our feet. We could not have followed the instructions more perfectly. In fact we researched for a week and spoke to a floor refinishing company just to insure we did things 100% correctly. Well here we are now, 12 days in and I can scratch this off with my nail in many places. I am not talking just a scratch in the wood, but a peeling of the top coat scraping down to and exposing bare wood. I am sick to my stomach. The floor will not last. It is supposed to be strong like for a gym. This would not hold up to a room of infants. We luckily were finishing in a vacant home so nothing was placed on the floor for 10 days. It's not even worth moving all of our heavy furniture and starting over so I am going to put laminate floors over top of this and be done with it. I called Bona and they told me that they suggest 8 hour stain drying time. Well then why the heck would you state on your product 2-3 hours? Human error on my part? I think not I did everything that Bona said. Disgusted with the product. I should have used a cheaper oil base from the big box store. Biggest regret of my life. Perhaps Bona stored the product in a cold warehouse? Maybe it was a faulty batch with bad hardener? I have no idea but it behaves like something that did not have hardener. However I checked the unused bottle the next day and it was solidifying in the jug. Something failed and I can't understand what because I followed Bona instructions to a T.

I suggest you save the swiffer and the pinesol for tiles. That's all they are allowed on. And yes, pinesol will STRIP the finish off of your floors in a heartbeat. I've seen instructions for water based finishes (Loba and Vermont Natural Coatings) state "Wait 14 days after final coat before installing area rugs or 'wet cleaning' products." My suggestion would be: wait 14 days before attempting a wet clean. I like to see rugs put down around 30 days after the final coat...just to be sure. This time frame will give you lots of time to investigate and to purchase the recommended cleaners for your finish. Please do not use wet swiffers (or even dry swiffers), pinesol, steam cleaners or (heaven to bed sheets) Murphy's Oil. All of these products have ruined hardwood floors.

We have hickory engineered hardwood with a fairly dark stain and we love it. I agree, that some hickory can be very high colour variation. But it isn't all that way. Ask to see samples in person and it is worth buying a box that you can open up and lay out the pieces so you can see the colour variation and decide if you can live with it. I'd choose our hickory all over again if I had to. No regrets, no splinters. Love it. Here is an example of a high colour variation hickory: You can see why folks are warning you about colour variation. Here is something similar to the hickory we have. Some of ours has been down for 4-5 years now and it is at a cottage which is unheated in winter (ours is Engineered which we were advised to use because the cottage is unheated). It still looks fantastic and shows no wear. We chose a handscraped finish, that way if it gets a few dings/bashes, they look like they belong. I can't remember the brand name we have and I've searched the store where we got it and the name isn't jumping out at me. Sorry I can't help on that.