I love wood.

And I love living with fine wood...one of life's true domestic aesthetic pleasures.

I have a few finishing questions. I rent an apartment and I am trying to make the best of a less than ideal situation by salvaging an ‘el cheapo’ landlord refinish job and increasing the quality as much as possible.

Background: I know some woods well, have a small hobbyist shop, and have built a good amount of furniture. I do have scrapers, cabinet scrapers, 5" ROS sander and vibrating block sander.

I’ve lived in my apartment for 25 years and will likely live here another 25 so floors matter (building built in 1920s, original floors). I live in NYC, previous landlord didn’t like to maintain the place. Now the new landlord (very cheap) has to do a floor repair so he is forced to sand/refinish two rooms, my kitchen and master bedroom. He’s hired very cheap labor to do the work.

I do not know if/when the floors will be refinished again so I want to make sure they are well protected and as beautiful as I can get them under the present circumstances.

The master bedroom is red oak with a darker 1”inlay boarder. There is a 3’ x 20’ new red oak repair area that is lighter than the rest of the floor (actually, the wood is the same tone as the lightest wood strips from the original floor, but there is NO admixture of varying tones of wood in the repair area…it is a solid block of pretty homogenous light toned red oak…again, el cheapo).
Bedroom was sanded first and they only used 24 grit on the drum, then moved to a 100 grit screen on a buffer! Swirl marks and scratches everywhere. I convinced them to buy more grits and redo it: they bought 60, 80, 100 and redid it, then screened with 125. The skill level is wanting and has ‘cigar’ marks from the drum sander in several places and just a few swirl marks, but is a big improvement. I am thinking of custom mixing a stain with the Bona DriFast, in which case I intend to borrow the buffer and rescreen at 100 (is that necessary? Also, after they screened, I went back in with some wood filler…mixing it with powdered pigment to match the tone to individual boards (I’m an artist so have lots of powdered pigments). ..so I am goong to have to ROS or palm sand the filled areas…is an overall rescreening recommended ? I am going to with 3 coats of Mega or 3 coats of Traffic after the DriFast stain. Can I save some $$ and use two coats of Mega under one finish coat of Traffic? Or is that not wise? If it is doable, are there special dry times after applying the Mega?


Kitchen is I think clear pine. It has been over 12+ years since it has been refinished and that refinish job was done by chumps with just a single coat of polyurethane…within a year the finish was wearing off rapidly…they probably didn’t dust very good either) . In time the finish wore completely off in about half the kitchen with very dark grey/black areas where the wood was exposed. Now, after the sanding, (I believe they did the 24, 60-80, 100, then screened at 125) about half the wood is slightly mottled with dull areas a tone or two darker than the clear look of pine, it gives the floor a dirty appearance. There are also two squarish areas of darker tone, which I think is due to the last refinish chums not putting poly under stove and fridge (which will moctly cover those areas anyway so no big deal). I’m not sure if they can sand deeper (or would even bother doing so…this is an el cheapo job). They also did a 1’ x 4’ patch of new red oak (the latter I’ll have to write off as character). The landlord is going to use one coat of sealer and one coat of cheap poly. So, I am going to purchase the finish and apply it myself. Due to asthma and having sleep here, I do not want to use OMP, nor do I like it’s heavy amber darkening in time (other rooms have parquet floors with ambered poly…master bedroom and kitchen can have a different look) . I want to go water base and bought Bona Mega semi-gloss, DTS Sealer, and three DriFast Stains: Natural, Ebony, Red Mahogany (stains are for use in master bedroom, probably wont stain kitchen). I am not sure if I will exchange the Mega for Traffic. My kitchen floor gets POUNDED.

Now, my instinct tells me that pine isn’t going to stain very well and may exacerbate the mottled areas. I want to keep the kitchen floor a light airy tone. I have a feeling the OMP would unify the kitchen floor and mask the moderate mottled appearance moreso than a waterbase….but again, I do not want the smell, long dry/cure time, and heavy ambering. Any ideas how to proceed on this?
Btw, the workers are returning to repair a few more floor boards that are splintered.

I am thinking of semi-gloss for the two rooms. Any opinion of semi-gloss on a mid-tome or darkish finish.

The chumps broke one radiator pipe trying to remove the bedroom radiator. Plumber had to be called to repair, so these guys are NOT removing the kitchen radiator and did not sand th almost black 80 year old varnish under it. I have a scraper and cabinet scraper, but it’s slow going. Any ideas other than brute force?

One other request: does anyone know of a web site that shows floors of red oak with various DriFast stain treatments? It’s hard to get a sense from the color swatches online and the small samples on the store wood chart. I have a few cut offs of red oak to play with and can also experiment on my closet floors if needed. I’m leaning towards Midnight Mahogany blend.

A million thanks for any ideas or suggestions.

PS: I will probably start applying finish in a day or two.

After your post, I needed a nap! Try scaling your questions down to manageable length.

But I'll say this. BONA TRAFFIC is WAY more durable than Mega. Mega will amber the wood a little bit. Traffic will not. Traffic cannot be applied directly over wood and must be used with a sealer or stain. Mega does not have those restrictions, though BONA still recommends their sealer. Satin finishes are usually recommended in areas of high traffic. Scratches show more in semi and gloss.

Also, expecting new flooring to match a 90 year old floor is unreasonable. The patching will probably show, even with stain. Has nothing to do with ability, although a well paid contractor might spend more time looking for wood that MIGHT match. But he would need to get paid to do it. Obviously, your landlord, the building's owner, has chosen to hire the lowest bid. That is his prerogative, since it's his building.

If you want to attempt staining and finishing these floors, get ready for an eye opener. I can tell you they won't turn out like you think they will. But since you did the work, you'll convince yourself they're great. That's fine as you'll have to live with the results. Nothing can take the place of many years of experience on FLOORS ( not woodworking or furniture refinishing. Totally different ) and professional flooring machines. They will probably be as good, if not better, then the results you'd get from those low ballers, as we call them.

As for sanding UNDER radiators, there are small radiator sanders. They cost hundreds of dollars. I have never seen them for rent. If you can get a small ROS under there, go for it. Prior to radiator sanders, the radiators were either removed or the finishers hand scraped under and around them, then hand sanded.

The BEST way to get an idea of the stain colors is to buy a can and stain some wood. Sure, it's more of a hassle. But the photos will not tell you what the color will look like in your place on your floors.

So good luck to you. Your landlord is fortunate to have a tenant who cares as much as you do about his property.

Wow, it could take pages to respond to your questions, lol. I am going to only answer one thing here for the moment, then have a nap.
For your kitchen, if you want the amber look of poly without the smell, use "Emulsion" from Basic Coatings. This is a hybrid finish, basically (no pun intended) of oil-mod urethane suspended in water. Since it is the solvents, not the polymers that stink, the odor of the Emulsion is far reduced but maintains the beauty of an oil-mod poly.

Thanks for the replies. Yeah, sorry for the rambling post, there’s a load of issues here

Again, I am trying to salvage the floors’finishes as best I can within my accepted limitations. The other option is let the workers do a sealer coat + 1 coat OMP (and choke to death here: I’ve seen their work, heavy applicator swirls everywhere. I can do better. BTW, the workers are not even low ballers. They work for the slumlord (and he is only even bothering to repair the floors because of legal issues; he’d rather not put one cent into the apartment). They are the illegals used to repair EVERYTHING: they are paid dirt wages and have very little skills. They recently attempted replacing my medicine cabinet….crooked and slanting forward.


1)Kitchen Masking Defects
I was thinking more in terms of the 'oil' look, rather than the amber look.
I guess the crux is trying to somehow mask the slightly mottled area. I really prefer not to use a product that will amber-darken with age like OMP, although I do not mind the initial tone/color of OMP when freshly laid. However, my thinking (possibly defective) was that one benefit of OMP is the oil saturating the wood with a slight tone might do something to mask the sporadic mottling and tie the floor together...I was wondering if that might be a strategy: if yes, how to do it with a STRONG waterbase finish that will not darken in time?
I need a really strong finish in the kitchen and I do not know when it will ever be redone. The reason the wood is damaged and mottled now is because it wasn’t properly finished/protected in the past.


2)Stain for Bedroom:

Here's a (darkish) photo. New replacement red oak is on the left.


Is applying stain a mistake? Initially I had eliminated this option as too complicated/difficult to pull off. But if going with a waterbase, i figure I'd rathe the floor be darker in tone. I was hoping to sand (using ROS or vibrating ) over the recent filler spots & slight swirl defects, then borrow the building’s buffer and install a 100 grit screen + red backing pad (under the white pad) and give it a final once over to unify the surface roughness. The bedroom floor looks surprisingly good except for the occasional ‘cigar’ defects (these are not too deep, but they are there). I’m sure when the finish is on the defects will become more glaring. Again, this is a salvage job.
Btw, I wasn't expecting the new wood to match the old, and I am surprised by how good the repair looks (the wood is straight!...and flat! trust me, I thought they would screw that up). However, all it would have taken was a few boards with varied tones mixed in and the repair would have been visually unified.


3)Traffic Over Mega?
Can I save some $$ and use two coats of Mega under one finish coat of Traffic? If yes, do I need to heed special recoat times?
Or is that not wise?


4)Gap Between Floor and Wall
The walls have base molding including a shoe molding. Even so, the 80 yr old apartment has gaps between floors and walls, some places almost an inch. Is there a recommended way to plug the gaps...on a budget? Squirt some sort of 'filler cauking' in there (prevent rodents, cockroaches...this is NYC) before or after finishing.
Maybe add a very slim secondary shoe molding?

Thanks again. Anything I do will be an improvement.

1) To get an oil look, you need to use OMU OR De-waxed shellac as a first coat. After completely dry, then you can apply Traffic over that.

2) I'm not even sure the old floor is red oak. It might be white oak or ? Anyway, staining probably isn't going to help unless it's so dark, it acts like paint and disguises the color differences and staining characteristics. If you want it to look like wood, you'll have to accept that the wrong wood was probably used to patch the floor and since it's not your place, there's nothing you can do about it unless you pay to have the work done yourself. Your landlord would be happy about that.

3) It's probably done all the time. But it will probably not perform exactly the same as if you had used all Traffic. That's the BONA message anyway. They say not to. They don't say exactly why.
Something about compatibility but that makes no sense because you can use Traffic on a re-coat over other finishes. It will work but I can't say if it will be as good as an all traffic finished floor.

4) The pro way of doing it is remove the baseshoe, add strips of flooring to fill the gaps while still leaving an expansion space that will be covered with the baseshoe when it gets put back. Or, use strips of cork. That is sometimes done. Going to take lots of colored caulking to fill 1" x 3/4" gaps

The old flooring looks like white oak to me.

If you stain the job it will be harder to see the difference between the two species.

You could save money by using Mega for the first two coats, but personally I would rather have only two coats of Traffic then three coats of anything else.

Based on that picture it appears you installed red oak next to a white oak floor. When you do stain it use a straight color like dark walnut or ebony, do the red oak side first and then add some of minwax's red oak stain to your stain. Find a good ratio and try a test area first like a closet. I have done this before for DIY's that installed the wrong wood.

I would get 100 watt light bulb or halogen work light, and look at the edges of the room with the light about four to six inches above the floor. I think you're going to see a lot of scratches and swirls where they used the edger. It's up to you how much scraping and orbitaling you want to do, but those marks are going to show up on a stain. At least you'll have some idea if you put the light over the floor--it highlights everything that's there, in a way that shows you clearly what needs to be scraped.

You can buy a small light socket ($1.99) that plugs into an extension cord, and you're good to go. Mechanic's lights with cages on them do not work well for this. A halogen is great, if you've got one. Craftsman makes a 64 LED light 'stick' that works well, too.

*Just now noticed that this was bumped up from 2009. I hope he got those scratches taken care of. If they were using 24 on the field, and then buffing, I can only imagine what they used for final on the edger.

Gary wrote:


In my area, many of the floors in Oakland are 80--100 years old, and the old red oak tends to sand up as a tan color. I find that new white matches old red pretty well. The gray of the white oak is more neutral than that 'salmon pink' of new red. The patches blend in OK with something as light as Duraseal Golden Brown, or Nutmeg.

On the other hand, my business partner works out of Marin County, and there's a lot of 50s and 60s housing there. It's red oak, salmon-colored when it sands up, and the new red oak on the repairs matches perfectly. He uses natural finishes all the time.

Based on this picture, it looks like they added red oak in the new section and had white oak in the rest.

This post w/ some picts may help:
Red oak vs white oak flooring
http://theflooringgirl.com/blog/red-oak ... rence.html

You may be able to get them to redo or else give a credit for that or something. A darker stain will help cover that up/blend it in a bit and/or add a bit of tint on last coat of poly to help a bit (on the red oak section to darken).

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