Hey Gary, something wrong with your math somehow, unless your gallons are way bigger than ours. My old school marm always said there were 4 quarts to a gallon, lol.

OMG, you're right! What was I thinking? Yes, you're correct Dennis. For 1000 sq.ft. one needs TWO gallons = 8 quarts. I guess I was out to lunch on this one

The voice in the background is saying "you should have listened to me". The wife has been saying get another gallon! The store is 40 miles away! Naw say I, Gary said a gallon is fine. Dennis has now reaffirmed my wife's position that men are hard headed and do not listen. Jeez. LOL Now she doubts that 7 gals. of Traffic will do 3 coats over 850 sq.

Ok boys...we are in a tight spot vis a vis math and the little women.

Bona says 1 gal of stain does 800 to 1000 sq ft.
Traffic goes 350 to 400 sq ft per gal.
I have 850 sq ft of wood, 1 gal of stain and 7 gal of Traffic.

If I am short on material I have to make a store run tomorrow or the weekend is toast and I will never hear the end of this.

Opinions please.

Ask the dealer if you can return unopened product and if so, buy more then you need and return the rest next time you are in town.

Seven gallons of finish will easily do three coats on 850 sq. ft. of floor.
First coat will take almost two gallons, second and third probable one and a half gallons each.
Two gallons of stain will be needed, but leaving you with a part gallon in case of future touch-ups

Further to my last message, unless you are using gloss, never use up a gallon of finish and start a new one in midstream. Use a larger bucket to mix enough finish for an entire coat. This will eliminate the probability of sheen level differences.
Do the same with the stain.

Ask the wife to go shopping for the day, lol, just kidding. She sounds like a good supervisor to keep you out of trouble.

Hi Walk, Yep..the guys at the wholesale supply house will let us bring back un-opened pails...so going to be smart and make the run this afternoon. After my poor showing with hitting the application coverage rates with the filler I am now doubting my other coverage rates.

Now the wife is in a quandry. She originally picked out Bono Nutmeg stain as a medium color to blend in the old and new wood. I have sanded the No. 1 Common Red Oak well enough that it all looks new. She now what's to go lighter or natural. She would really like to go natural but is petrified that some of it will look pink. And since Traffic will not amber, if leaving the oak natural will go a little pink....well I will be in big trouble.

So I am now looking at Bono Golden Oak or Puritan Pine to go lighter and move the color spectrum away from pinkish and towards yellowish. Have any of you guys run those stains and what was your impression. I know we are in the subjective realm here but would appreciate comments.

Dennis..you have us pegged

Changing directions again. Now thinking of just sealing with either Bono DTS or Bona Amberseal. Heading back to the supply house this afternoon to look at samples. Leaning towards Amberseal. I am hoping for a nice amber look with the least amount of grain variation.

Arrrgh...I have to stop reading old post. LOL. I'm ready to screen the back 3 bedrooms and was really pumped at how they looked...man this old oak looks as pure and fresh as new driven snow (or strips as it may be). Well, I got to 60 last night on the "new" big room. This is the room that was a Living, Dining and Kitchen before I took out some walls and weaved in the new wood into the old. There is still a slight difference in color. The new wood has a more pinkish/reddish cast than the old wood. The wife/supervisor talked me out of the store run yesterday (which is a good thing). Now, I can finish the house to 100 screen and watch the ball game.

So, we have have till next Thursday to come up with the solution gentlemen. She was having misgivings about the nutmeg stain, which is a medium tone, but still too dark for her. She has a lot of older antique furniture that is mahogany. Lighter floors under darker furniture makes for a happy wife. And happy wives make pies and cakes!

So once I opened my yap that I (we) have done such a terrific job of sanding that stain was no longer necessary - she was happy indeed (and I am looking forward to cheese cakes and pecan pies).

Then I read some more post this AM and am back to wondering what do do. I think Bono DTS will not add enough color. I was really counting on Amberseal to add just enough yellow to give new and old wood a fairly uniform look and end up with that older natural amber look. The new and old wood are really not that different in color - but man am I nervous.

Are we at the "damn the torpedoes boys - full speed ahead" moment? Pies hang in the balance.

Well, if there is a colour difference in the raw wood, there is gonna be one in the finished product. The light stain or natural finish you want will show the differences more than a medium to dark stain.
One point I would like to make. You are looking at a large empty space. Consider your furniture placement, areas rugs, etc. that are gonna occupy this space when you are done. Will this help alleviate any of the disparity?

Final decision rests with you and/or your wife. Since it is subjective, there is no way any of us here can make the decision for you.

I was looking at furniture placement as Dennis suggested etc. A planned breakfast bar addition will fall right in to where all 4 fields converge in the big room, helping with that subtle color change.
After a little more sanding and edging I decided I was out of time and out of enthusiasm for this project. And I was not looking forward to T-Baring the Traffic on a first time effort with nothing to practice on.
So...I changed directions again. I had run into a 2 man crew at the supply house earlier in the week. We exchanged business cards and talked floors, college football and boats (I am a boat builder by trade). Richard said to call him if I needed any advice. So I called Saturday and we met and agreed on some money and I turned the project over to him.
His big machine really cuts much better than the EZ-8 I was using (the U-Sand was long retired to the toy bin).
They were impressed with my weave work and had kind words for my poor edging. Their big machine worked out the last little color shift in the wood and they re-edged a lot of my work. I had abandoned a few closets to the heck- with- it bin and they knocked those out for me as well.
We met again, last night ( I had my Marine Engineer in tow), and the floors are coming along nicely. I believe AmberSeal and 3 Traffics will be the trick.
I would like to say Thank You for your advice and for this board. I learned a lot about flooring from reading all the post and appreciate your time and talent advising us DYI’ers. I can say that overall I have enjoyed the project immensely, especially now that I am off the machine. Whether cutting a fast mortise and tenon on the fly or torturing a plank across a bow stem, the devil is always in the details and it takes some years to master your trade’s devils. Thanks again. I will post a few photos in the gallery to give something back to the board. Tight lines.

Maybe I should have stayed in the game. The finishers I hired put down the Amberseal last Monday. They abraded with a maroon pad on Tuesday and put down the first coat of Traffic satin. Repeated the process on Weds and Thurs abrading between each coat with the maroon pad. They used 6 gallons of Traffic so the application rate looked about right. I was not around to personally observe. I went down on Friday to pay them and check the job. The floors look terrific. However, they do feel rough to the hand. When you get down on your hands and knees and look across the floor, you can see and feel some raised grain. Not sure if this is the feel I should get off 1 coat Amberseal and 3 coats Traffic.

Wife loves the look. Could still see some color differences between old wood and new wood, but it's darn close to the same.

Wondering if I need to go another application of Traffic. How smooth should the floors feel under 3x Traffic Satin?