What flooring material is it?

Hi Diana, Thanks for the reply. Hardwood maple. Polyurethane, oil-based, I think.

Maybe it's just the poly that has turned? It may need to be screened. I'd get a flooring pro in to look at it.

All wood changes color with light exposure. Zilch to be done.

Don't cover the hwd.

Hi Sophie, U.H., Thanks. Unless you have zero furniture -- which, in our case, we already have much less furniture than normal: we only have ONE chair and zero normal tables for the entire place -- some floor areas are bound to be covered. I only wish the pros ( the floor pros, the contractors ) had warned me after they just installed the new floor. I don't mind moving the furniture slightly, regularly, to even out the discoloring. Sigh. Thank you.

You could set a pillar candle on a cherry table, walk away for a day, and come back to a perfect circle on the table when the candle is removed. ALL wood reacts to light- both the lack of it, and the abundance of it. A rug set down on a cherry floor, will in mere weeks reflect the darkening all around the rug.....and the absence of light and air will reveal a LIGHTER floor underneath the rug. The only way to stop these changes is to live in a cave absent all light. And furnishings.

its the nature of things, this spot will be less noticeable soon.

One idea that was suggested to me back when I first noticed and obsessed about this very phenomenon in my own home was to have that uv film stuff applied to the windows. I did, but I don't really know if it worked, because I stopped worrying about it and started worrying about all the other stuff I can't control. I do totally understand how you feel, but this is just part of what happens with things exposed to sunlight. Best to you!

Hi Lizzie, Thank you. Your UV film idea probably helped, but it'd make the place (even) darker; and not a very elegant solution. Jan, thank you -- I do have very minimal furniture, compared to the average. If I had known about it, I would've regularly shifted the covered spots, at least to lessen the effects ( no hard-lined discoloring, at least ). Thanks.

Maple is a DYNAMIC wood in the presence of LIGHT (sunlight has high UV = more change than table lamp...but both will cause maple to change). You would have to have the maple installed in a room without windows AND without ANY SOURCE of light to stop this from happening.

Maple moves from a lovely, pale blond to a STRONG MARGARINE yellow in a few weeks/months in direct sunlight. This is maple. Maple does this. You could pay $5/sf for a full sand and refinish (back to pale blond) and pay THOUSANDS of dollars for new windows and this will still happen. It may take a year instead of a few weeks, but this is what maple does.

The good news is: maple has a "terminal colour". Once it gets to the strong yellow, it shouldn't get any stronger. Expose the rest of the floor to strong sunlight and you will find it all evens out in a year or so.

There are one or two HIGH END floor finishes (Loba is an example) that has produced a UV coating to slow this down (by about half)....but these are rare and very, very, very few flooring professionals know about them...and only a handful of those have ever used it. Here is a nice link to what I'm describing:

http://www.loba.de/fileadmin/site_structure/produkte/11017/gb/TI_GB_11017_WS_UV_Protect.pdf

Sorry but we are so used to maple turning a strong yellow that we forget that lay people/homeowners don't know this. Sorry to say but Maple and Cherry both do this in sunlight. Cork gets lighter, maple and cherry get darker. It is the life of wood.

Some of us do know about LOBA @cancork. Loba is an awesome finish. Supra isn't the easiest but looks mint

@cancork what's your handle on insta? Houzz is dead. Insta is where all the action is....