When you can walk on it and when it is fully cured
For standard Bona polyurethane finishes, the floor will take light foot traffic after roughly 8 hours and reaches full hardness in 7-14 days. If possible, avoid walking on it with shoes for at least the first 48 hours. This assumes reasonable drying conditions -- low temperatures, poor ventilation and high humidity will slow down the curing, so site conditions must be factored in when planning reoccupation.
With Bona Traffic HD and Traffic GO the curing is faster. Floors can often go back into near-full use after 24 hours, with full cure in about 3 days. There is one exception: Bona Traffic HD Raw. The ultra matt look requires a different formulation that takes longer to cure, so HD Raw should be treated the same as a standard finish.
Bona oil systems should not be trafficked for 12 hours after application. Bona Hard Wax Oil needs 18 hours. Over the next few days the floor area can be reoccupied as with a normal finish system.
Putting furniture back
Moving furniture back onto the floor, with care, can usually happen 48 hours after the final coat has dried. In poor drying conditions extend this period -- the finish may be more easily damaged and heavy furniture can leave dents in a surface coating that has not fully hardened.
All furniture must be lifted into place, never dragged or pushed. This is where most damage happens. Fridges and dishwashers are the worst -- they get moved carefully to the kitchen, positioned in front of their spot, then pushed into place, leaving long scratches and dents across the new floor. The right way is to wheel the appliance on a trolley to the front of its space, place it on a piece of hardboard or similar wrapped in a soft blanket, and slide it in. If any minor damage does occur it will be under the machine and not visible.
All furniture should have protective felt feet fitted to prevent scratching and marking. Check and replace the felt regularly -- if grit gets caught underneath it, the felt drags the grit across the floor like sandpaper, especially on chairs and stools that move often.
Plastic feet, rubber mats and chemical staining
Hard plastic feet can cause physical damage to timber flooring and should be replaced or have felt placed beneath them. Some plastic and rubber feet leach chemicals into the floor that cause discolouration. The same issue can occur with rubber backing on mats, anti-slip nets for rugs, and similar items.
Anti-ozonants are added to rubber and plastic for age stability and ozone protection. These chemicals are designed to migrate to the surface of the rubber to provide protection, but they also migrate into other materials. This staining can happen on any coated timber surface and also affects vinyl, marble, terracotta, hybrid and other flooring types. How likely it is depends on how fresh the rubber is, the type of anti-ozonant used, temperature, the weight and pressure from the object, and UV exposure.
Painting skirtings and decorating after the floor is done
Repainting skirtings and other decoration often happens soon after moving back in. Impermeable sheeting like plastic must be avoided until the finish system has fully cured -- it can affect the curing process, potentially causing uneven sheen, poor scuff resistance, and in extreme cases adhesion failure between the finish and the timber. Painter's drop sheets can be used as long as they are moved frequently and not dragged across the floor.
If masking tape is used on the floor alongside skirtings, it must be professional quality low-tack tape and should not be applied during the curing period. Poor quality tape, tape left on for days, or tape with high adhesion can pull the finish off the floor when removed. The right approach is to apply good quality masking tape shortly before painting starts and remove it straight after the paint has gone on. This is the same process used on sports floors for line marking -- thousands of lineal metres of tape are applied and removed during the process without damaging the newly coated floor.
With some common sense, floors can go back into use and recently renovated areas can be reoccupied fairly soon after the work is done. After moving back in, a maintenance routine using Bona Floor Care products will keep the floor clean and in good condition.