Got too aggressive with steel wool on pavers, how can I make this look right?

Question

A friend of mine suggested using steel wool to remove stains from paver stones. This turned out to be a pretty dumb thing to do. Many of the pavers have been obviously smoothed out and the color is slighly lighter (the same color, but lighter) than the surface color. The result is that many of the stones have a splotchiness to them with a big splotch right where I applied the steel wool.

I'm thinking now that the damage is done, I should just steel-wool the whole stone to make the noticable stones at least consistent. But I'm really nervous about applying steel wool again and making things worse. Does anyone else have any other suggestions?

Answer 1

Without seeing the "damage" I can't say for sure, but your best bet would be to try and even things out a bit, and accept that you aren't going to get a perfect finish.

Use a finer grade steel wool and try and blend the patches so you don't have a sharp transition between the colours.

You might find that leaving it over a winter will even out the colouration anyway.

Answer 2

It's possible that your pavers had a sealant that you scrubbed away in those spots. This article has a before and after picture; do your pavers looke similar?

If you know who the supplier or manufacturer is, you could try asking them for advice. Failing that, buff out the scrubbed spots to blend in with the surrounding area, then reapply a sealant. Here's a description of the process.