Dents in parquet flooring can simply be ironed away with a damp cloth. Photo: dpa

If you're stuck at home more often lately due to the coronavirus pandemic and are noticing little scratches and other flaws in your flooring for the first time, you're not alone. What better time than now to tackle some of these little annoyances? The DIY Academy in the German city of Cologne has some flooring tips.

For example, if your parquet flooring has dents, you can simply iron them out – if they're not too deep. Place a damp cloth between the wood and the clothing iron. The moisture will cause the wood fibres to swell, and then the iron's heat will remove the moisture.

You can do this as many times as you like, until all the dents have disappeared. This trick also works for dents on wooden furniture.

For some dull spots on your parquet floor, a microfibre cloth can sometimes be enough to polish them out. If that doesn't work, use a little toothpaste, without water, to rub the spot, says the academy.

Key is rubbing the spot until there's no toothpaste left – you don't want it drying on the floor.

If after all this effort you can't get the dull spots to shine even slightly, you should sand them down and then seal them with clear polish. If you don't have it at home, clear nail polish also works. – dpa