Hey everyone,

So I've been working hard on this 600 sq ft house. The owner wanted his red oak floors to stained gray. Well I put down three different shades of gray but the red hues still push themselves through the gray. Homeowner decided on a mix that I did that was Minwax pickled out and ebony. The first coat was the classic gray Dura Sea. The second shade was the Minwax Classic Gray. Now after the homeowner decides on the color, I put it down and waited 24 hours due to being minwax. After I got the first coat of polyurethane on, he calls me tells me it's not gray. Has anyone dealt with gray stain on red oak? If so please help me out.

I dont know what your sanding process is but when i bought my house i installed 2 1/4" r.o. and stained them classic grey. BUT i antiqued my floors with wire brushes on the ceno satellite. I then flew over it all real fast with 120 grit paper on the satellite. And of course i water popped before staining. Finished with 2 coats of bona naturale (ultra matte). My final product at a "birds eye view" is the hard grain shows the pink you get with red oak and the soft grain is a dark grain.
But when you stand back and look across the floor it looks cometely grey.
I cant figure out how to upload pics on here so someone give me a heads up on how to upload pics from my phone so i can show off my hard work.

I'd like to see that gray floor...

Upload pics? That's always been one of the short comings with this message board. There is an area for it. Unfortunately I don't use it either.

Obviously, it's more challenging to do gray on red oak than white oak due to pink undertones on red oak.

We generally don't use the premade stains for gray, but rather use a mix of white and ebony (from bona) and you often need to go darker on red oak to mask the red tones.

Bleaching the floor first is also an option, but not one I would recommend.

You can see some picts in this article:
http://theflooringgirl.com/blog/stainin ... ty-ny.html

Note: this was written for customers (not installers), but the picts of the mixing ratios may help. We recently did a home where a customer had red oak on half the floors and white oak on other half so we tested on both.

Debbie, The Flooring Girl
http://TheFlooringGirl.com

I can certainly add to this story! 3 weeks ago I hired a contractor to stain my floors grey. Not too sure you are aware of the Bona Graphite Oil and Bona Nordic Tone Bona advertising in Europe. I fell in LOVE with the Graphite Grey Oil and the Nordic Tone effect. So what did I do? You guessed it. I called a Bona retailer in London and spent a boat load of money for the Graphite Oil and Nordic Tone. Bona USA would not help me with this process so I did it on my own.

It took about a week to get it shipped from Londona and then from customs. So it arrives and my contractor gets right to work. We had a conf call with the Bona techs in London. They sent us directions and a video to follow. We did it exactly as we were told.

The floor came out BROWN! A beautiful brown but NOT what I was looking for. Besides spending twice the amount to have these floors done, the results were just brown!

I am now working directly with Bona in Sweden who are trying to come up with an oil that will work on Red Oak. I am told it is the Red Oak that makes it come out brown. I really hope Bona finds an oil to make it look like the graphite grey advertised on their website. If they do I will keep you all posted.