Ace Hardware Strip & Wax — Lake County, IL

Vinyl composition tile (VCT) in a busy retail environment takes a beating. After years of cart traffic, spills, salt in winter, and routine mopping, even well-maintained floors end up with that unmistakable "tired" look — hazy, scratched, and dulled in the high-traffic lanes. The Ace Hardware team needed their sales floor to look as professional as the products on the shelves. A standard mop-and-buff couldn't get there. The old wax had to come up — all of it — before a fresh finish could go down. And it had to happen overnight, with the store fully reset and dry by opening.

A full strip and wax is one of the highest-impact things you can do for a commercial space. Done right, it makes a 10-year-old floor look like the day it was installed. We mobilized after close: cordoned the work zone, removed any movable displays, and applied a heavy-duty stripping solution to break down years of accumulated wax buildup. A floor machine with a stripping pad lifted the old finish, then we wet-vacuumed and rinsed the tile back to bare, revealing the original tile color underneath. After a clean rinse and full dry, we laid down four thin coats of commercial-grade floor finish, allowing each coat to cure between applications. The result is the high-gloss, reflective finish you see in the after photos — a fully sealed surface that's easier to maintain, more resistant to scuffs and stains, and looks dramatically more professional.