How we renovated the wooden floor in Apple store using Bona System

The Imagine Apple store at Forum Mall, Bangalore was the first store that India got closer to the ‘Apple Store experience’. Situated at the upmarket Forum Mall in Bangalore, people thronged to the store and even today, years after it was opened, the store has more than 1000 footfalls on a week day and this can go up to 3000 footfalls during weekends and holidays.

Keeping in line with the Apple store design format, the store has engineered white oak flooring throughout the store. Being a small store of about 1000 square foot and due to heavy footfalls, the wooden floor got worn out over the years of usage.

Being a wooden floor that was coated using Bona UV finishes, the Apple retail store contacted us, Westwood Floorings, who are the country distributor for Bona in India to look at the options of renovating the floor.

The primary factors we were to consider while suggesting a suitable renovation procedure was:

The very heavy footfall that is expected in the store every day.

The store, since it has only one entrance, the area in front of the store is prone to extremely high wear

The same is the case around the display counters since the customers tend to spend a lot of time around the counters checking out the apple products.

The store had : Heavily worn out floor near the entrance to the store, worn out floors thorough out the store, heavy wear around the display units

In addition to the above traffic related issues, we also  needed to consider the following factors during the renovation process:

Being one of the highest grossing store in sales in the country, the management did not want to close the store for a single hour leave alone a single day.

Due to the time factor, the store should not have any unpleasant smell or odour when it is opening for customers the next day morning.

Dust was a big concern since there are very expensive items on display and it was not possible to remove any of those items due to the limited window of time available.

Keeping all these factors in consideration, we recommended the toughest and fastest solution available:

Sand the floor back to bare wood using Bona Sanding System.

Coat the floor with Bona Prime Intense as a primer for better adhesion of the finish to the wood.

Apply two coats of the world’s toughest wooden floor finish – Bona Traffic HD. Bona Traffic HD is also green guard certified for indoor air quality. So there are no harmful fumes lingering around the next day when it is open to customers.

How we did it?

On Night 1 – Start time 9.30 pm

Once the store was closed for business, we took the first part of the store, about 500 square feet, and sanded the floor to bare wood. The entire sanding, done with Bona Belt Sander and a Bona Flexi Sander, took around 3 hours. We were careful to use the right Bona Antistatic abrasives which also helps in dust containment.

Once the floor was sanded, we applied Bona Prime Intense. We then waited for about 4 hours and then applied the first coat of Traffic HD in that area. We did not want the leave the floor with just primer for the night since the floor might contaminated with dirt from the customer traffic next day. We finished the application of Bona Traffic HD around 5 AM. And the floor was ready for customers by 10.30 AM, the normal time at which they open for business.

Night -2 – Start time 9.30 pm.

We first started sanding the second half of the store back to bare wood and repeated the same process as the day 1 for the balance area of 500 square feet also. The same timing almost and again the store was ready for customers at 10.30 AM.

Night -3 – The Final Night

Now that all the areas are covered with one coat of Traffic HD from the previous two night’s work, our job is relatively easy. We started at around 10 pm (the store was unusually busy and last customer were setting up their MacBook)

We did a fine sanding with Bona Diamond Abrasives for a smooth surface ( Traffic HD being so hard, we recommend Bona Diamond Abrasives for inter-coat sanding ) and then the entire store was taken up together for the final coat of Bona Traffic HD application. The entire work was completed by around 1 am.  Then we have about 9 hours before the first customer walk in the next day.

The work process

6 - Sanding back to bare wood - Step 1

a) Sanding with Bona Belt Sander

b) Bona Flexi Sander for smoother surface

c) Bona Edger to sand the edges

d) Apply the toughest finish in the world - BonTraffic HD

Once the floor was renovated, we made sure that the customer was trained on how the maintain the floor in future by using Bona Care products including the Bona Wood Floor Cleaners and Bona Mops.

And the final product

So at the end of Night 3, Bona has added another satisfied customer to its global list of customers.