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How to get permanent marker off a hardwood floor

Sat, 01/26/2008 - 10:58 — Bela

Life is full of surprising and intellectually stimulating interludes, particularly when one's household is equipped with offspring of an adventurous and inquisitive nature. One of the offspring contingent of this particular household presented me with an interlude of that sort mere minutes ago by accidentally drawing a thick blue line in permanent marker smack dab in the middle of the kitchen floor--a nice absorbent oak surface.

My wife, the Viking descendent, threw in the towel immediately after taking a few desultory swipes at the blot with some window cleaner.

"Fine, so we'll have a blue line on the kitchen floor for the rest of our lives," she exclaimed somewhat peevishly and stomped off to the shower.

Not so, I thought, for I believe I may have a solution.

The solution I had was, in fact, a solution. Known as lacknafta in these here parts, it's a petroleum distillate that I believe is functionally equivalent to turpentine, so the English word for the substance isn't particularly important. It might be called "white spirit".

Suffice it to say, about 15-20 minutes of assiduous scrubbing with a paper towel soaked in the lacknafta stuff reduced the striking blue stroke to a mere ghost of its former self. The line did not disappear completely, but did fade to the point at which one now has to look very carefully to identify the location of the tragedy. In another week or two, the tragedy will be nothing but a memory.

And as far as I can tell, the hardwood floor and its lacquered coating suffered no permanent damage from the incident. I assume the lacknafta also removed some of the lacquer, but nothing visible. Perhaps that patch will wear slightly more rapidly than the rest of the floor, but with two kids and a large dog scampering around the house, our floors are doomed anyway. At night, they whimper.

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Comments

Sat, 10/31/2009 - 09:30 — Colin Mitchell

Haha! I had to giggle at the

Haha! I had to giggle at the image of your floors whimpering at night, I know my walls do the same with two budding artists in the house. And for some reason they just LOVE drawing with permanent marker. The bigger, thicker, and more dangerous a drawing implement is, the more it draws their attention. Your solution was very ingenuous - one of those things that even Commercial Cleaners might not have thought of. They can be built for speed, not inventiveness :-). I'm certain that you could re-lacquer your floor yourself, as a handy sort of guy. The hardware shop would certainly be able to help you.

Thanks

Mon, 10/26/2009 - 12:10 — jorge

Suggest me some internet

Suggest me some internet site where I can get some House front elevation/design models??

Wed, 10/14/2009 - 11:37 — Shown

I think I would not call non

I think I would not call non pavement homes as being a defect but certainly if you can have pavements made on the driveway or entrance of your home then it really enhances the appearance of the property.

Shown,

Wed, 09/30/2009 - 08:51 — Shown

Cleaning is taken very

Cleaning is taken very seriously here at cleaninghands.co.uk. Being busy people, we know how hard it is to fit cleaning into our daily lives - let’s face it, how many of us want to spend a day cleaning when we could be out doing something much more entertaining.

John

Sat, 09/26/2009 - 17:47 — Steven_Jones

Oh, the joys our children

Oh, the joys our children bring us! When looked on as a positive thing, we should view the advent of offspring in a household as a time for educational advancement, such as you have suggested in your article.

Your dilemma reminded me of a time when I believed the only viable option was for the entire family to shift permanently into the attached pergola so that my children could "accidentally" destroy, demolish, desecrate and disfigure their temporary accommodation without doing too much damage to their parents' fragile state of mind.

It certainly provides food for thought, n'est-ce pas?

Tue, 09/22/2009 - 06:23 — steven00

My two year old just colored

My two year old just colored on the dining room floor with permanent marker. Any suggestions on how to get it off?

Sat, 08/29/2009 - 13:04 — Keith Russel

Yeah surely the arrival of a

Yeah surely the arrival of a new one means that there are all sorts of activities that happening and without a warning. If you are concerned about the flooring then you can have a temporary laminate flooring to cover the original hardwood floor.

Certainly it would cost but there exist options for inexpensive laminate flooring which means it cost very little and saves you a great deal over cleaning the flooring.

Keith

Mon, 08/24/2009 - 08:54 — max

Carpet Cleaning

Hi,
Hardwood Flooring are an investment and increase the value of your home for many years to come.Hardwood floors are actual solid wood like pine or oak and has to be installed by professional and then stained and finished. Can be redone or refinished many many years later and looks like brand NEW.

Tue, 08/18/2009 - 13:00 — john0009

window shades

Hi,

Wood flooring is any product manufactured from timber that is designed for use as flooring, either structural or aesthetic. Bamboo flooring is often considered a wood floor, although it is not manufactured from timber....

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 06:24 — peterson00

Flooring

Hi,

Nice article.....What are the benefits of vacuum dewatered flooring?

Sat, 08/01/2009 - 07:16 — jose123

Hardwood floors

Can I refinish my hardwood floor?

Thanks

Fri, 09/18/2009 - 00:59 — bebasi

Yes

Yes You can refurnish your hardwood floors.

Fri, 06/06/2008 - 20:58 — Critters_Baby

Perm Marker

My darling two year old went a drew on my floor with black. I could of screamed. I tried some Fast Orange Hand Cleaner with pumice and it worked as well. thanks for the tip i would of never thought to use something like that.

Del