Water damage, hardwood floor

[cristeen]

Yesterday I went to flip the floor mattress (futon) DS and I have been co-sleeping on for the last 15-ish months.  It'd been at least 6 months since I flipped it.  I discovered extensive moisture damage to the hardwood floor underneath, and a large circle of matching damage to the mattress, where my body moisture obviously seeped through the mattress. 

My concern at this point is repairing or mitigating as much of the damage as possible.  The floor is 80ish years old, and to replace it in that one room would cost more than I care to think about (the whole house has the same floor).  The patch of visible damage (to the finish) is maybe 18 inches wide by 2 feet long, allthough the noticeable damage (swelling and buckling) is in a larger area.  The wood is still damp, so I put a piece of plywood over it and 2 cases of water on top, but it didn't seem to be heavy enough to push it down (me standing on it will push the buckle back down).  Has anyone got any brilliant suggestions for me?  That is still DS' bedroom, so I'm having to work around the cases of water right now, but if it's not going to help, why bother, yk?  I have the windows open and the fan on to get some air circulation in there, since we are in the hottest part of the year right now.  And the mattress is gone (I rushed out and bought him a toddler mattress yesterday). 

So, description of the damage - There's a large area that was under the bed that obviously has been exposed to moisture.  It's swollen and lifted a little bit away from the subfloor.  It's not hugely noticeable in most of that area, if I hadn't been looking for it, I probably wouldn't have noticed, and could theoretically be attributed to the age of the house/floor if I didn't know better .  In the patch with the visible damage though, two of the planks are cupping away from each other, and buckling up.  This is the main portion I need to address, and the portion with the plywood on it right now.  Once it dries back out, then I'll need to address the visible damage, a large grey patch in an otherwise gold with cherry accent floor (it's the cherry accent that's cupping).  For now, that'll be tossing a play rug over it.  But for the long-term, is there anything I can do to just that patch?  The wood floors throughout the house need to be refinished, but that means moving (all the furniture) out of the house for a week, so it's not really feasible.  Is there a way of resealing it / conditioning it without causing more damage? 

[elsie]

For now, I would put a bed over it on a frame so the floor gets circulation. Once it is dried, it can be sanded,stained and sealed. As old as the floor is,  this may help some but ultimately you can get the whole thing refinished someday.

[ChristyMarie]

Um, you are making it worse by covering it up.  Get everything off of it and set a fan to blow on it for a few days.  You've gotta get it dried out.

Once dry, some wood will flatten out.  Just depends on how bad the damage is.

If it isn't too bad you can sand, stain and poly and it will be fine.  It will look different but they can match stain really well and if you sand and blend it should look pretty good.  Find a specialty paint store to do it.  I am in the middle of huge project involving matching different wood stains in the house and it is coming out really well.

If the wood is ruined it isn't that big of a deal to cut out the bad pieces and replace.  Yes, you will see the difference but a pack of oak flooring is about $40 at Menards.