Hello,
We put on an addition awhile back and are trying to learn and do as much ourselves as we can. So long story short we are new to this… We have been doing our own trim work and felt comfortable with staining and polyurethaning so we figured we would take on finishing a small section of new solid oak flooring near our front entry. The boards are 2-1/4” wide red oak. We went with a natural stain and oil based polyurethane. After the polyurethane, we have some small gaps between some of the boards. We naively thought that they would fill as we went forward, but some small ones are still there. We have finished 3 full coats of poly and are really happy with the color, sheen, and quality of the finish, but just wish we had used filler or something ahead of time on the gaps… wondering now if there is anything we can do to not have to sand it all back down? Is there maybe a product that is typically used on prefinished floors that we could try? I’m sure not ideal, but maybe?

Anyway, thanks in advance for your help and expertise! We are having fun learning as we go, just hoping this wasn’t a big oops!

Thanks
Ann

There are several brands of "pre-finish" putty. They are water-based. They do not require another coat of finish over the filler, which comes in many colors. It is fairly easy to use if you wipe off the extra before it hardens. I think another coat off finish over the whole floor would look best after you deal with the small gaps. Remember that some gaps may go away with seasonal differences of humidity according to your climate. If you are going to use a colored putty instead of the pre-finish putty, just go over the whole floor with a coat of poly and it will look fine.