Hello, I am currently remodeling my house, it has hardwood flooring. I belived it was red oak, and so did a professional that I sent some pictures to. I have the floor I believe stripped of stain and finish, I have already went over it with 24 grit and 36 grit. I received samples of red oak and set the on the new floor, when dry they look the exact same, but when I wet them, my existing floor comes out much much darker. I am having a feeling when I apply finish it is going to have the same effect. Any ideas?

If you sand your existing floor with a higher grit sand paper than what you have used it will absorb less stain and not be as dark.

In addition to the different sanding grits, you can also lighten the stain mixture by adding maybe a quarter neutral stain for the old flooring, and use full-strength stain for the new planks. You won't be able to do a natural finish in this situation--it will require a light stain. You want just enough neutral to lighten the stain somewhat, and not so much that it changes the color completely.

When you refer to stain, do you mean actual stain that will darken the wood, or just finish? If I used stain, couldn't I just stain the new planks to help darken them to the rest of the floor. In that case, how would I know what stain to choose?

Try sanding your existing floor finer around 80 grit and then see what it looks like, Also a lot of the time older white oak is mistaken for red oak because of the way the finish ambered over time. can you post some pictures for us to see?

I will give that a try before I do anything drastic, if it comes to a point I don't feel comfortable its going to come out right, then I may hire someone to do the repair job. Thanks for the help everyone. I'll keep you updated on it.

Here are the pictures dry and wet.
http://i1153.photobucket.com/albums/p50 ... 163535.jpg

http://i1153.photobucket.com/albums/p50 ... 163513.jpg

Its hard to see the 2nd picture but it may be white oak which will be darker and browner then the red oak

I'm going to try sanding to 80 grit and them compare the two, that should help determine.

By stain I mean a pigmented mixture, not a 'natural' sealer with no pigment in it. You have to have some pigment to work with, to make it darker or lighter. You use the full-strength stain for the new boards that are light, and you use the same stain diluted with neutral stain for the planks that are already dark.



You can use any stain color you want for this; all you need to do is make sure you lighten the mixture that you put on the old floor.

It looks like you may have white oak on the old floor, in which case some of that color difference is coming from white oak vs. red oak. It might be worthwhile to go down and pick up a piece of new white oak and see if you get a better match with that.

You can also try adding a tint on last coat of poly (for the lighter areas).

Debbie Gartner aka The Flooring Girl
Owner Floor Coverings International - Westchester NY
http://TheFlooringGirl.com

I really appreciate all the great advice, however I am a complete newbie when it comes to refinishing floors. When you say a pigmented mixture do you mean like using bona amberseal, I would use it at full strength on the new ares to help darken, but thin it out for the rest of the floor? Am I correct with this?

I read actually staining a floor before putting a finish on it is a very time consuming and difficult process.

Wanted to say as well, I had a sample of white oak as well, but never compared it because I was pretty sure it was red oak, white oak looks almost the same dry, and when wet they look much much closer than the red oak did. I think with more sanding and finish put on, it will not be very noticeable.

You're correct about the full-strength part. You won't use Amberseal; that is a sealer, and has no pigment. Stains=pigment. Sealers=no pigment. A sealer just brings out the wood color that's already there. It won't darken or lighten the wood, even if you thinned it down. Stains are labeled as such, and if you're not sure, ask the clerks.




It is more time-consuming than just slapping down a natural finish, because a stain will show every sanding mark on the floor. But if you're got to replace boards on the flooring, and they don't quite match, then a stain is what you want to use. I haven't looked at staining videos on Youtube, but I'm sure there's a ton of them. Look for ones where the demonstrator is showing you how to scrape and hand-sand, because that's a big part of the work.

It also requires screening the floor. Maybe that's something you could call in a pro to do, if you're not familiar with running a buffer. Or there's Youtube, again, where you can probably learn the basics.

Thanks for the good advice, what I am going to do is finish sanding the floor, and then apply finish to a small area of the old floor and put some finish on the sample and see how it comes out, if it is very close then I am probably going to just leave it as is, if it needs to be darker then I will try the staining process.