I am going to refinish my 100 year old floors by hand and have a question about tinting the Waterlox. I read that Waterlox recommends Zars tints to add to the Waterlox with 4:1 Waterlox:Zars recommended ratio. I was thinking about using the Miniwax floor stain half Jacobean/half Ebony in the same 4:1 ratio to get that very dark wood look because I am familiar with Miniwax products. My question is will the Miniwax stain work the same as the Zars or should I just stick with the Zars and play around with the colors until I get the depth I like?

I do not like the plastic wood look that you get with the polys and prefer the old hand polished look that my grandmother's floors had where the floor looks like a favorite pair of old weathered leather gloves. That's what I googled and found out about Waterlox on gardenweb.com.

My other option is the old fashioned look of painted floors and painting them a satin black or white until I can afford to have the floor guy fix them.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

I saw a previous post that mentioned Monostain. Which would be better the Monostain or the Waterlox? My old floors are badly stained so I am going very dark with the color. Is there a difference between these two products or basically the same stuff just a different label? Thanks for any insights.

I'm only familiar with waterlox . You can mix in minwax if you want to but double check with the manufacturer. Also, be aware that low VOC minwax will slow down drying so use their old formula quarts instead of their low VOC gallons.

Also, waterlox can take a long time to dry so be careful about not piling too many coats in a row or you'll have issues.

Lastly, you can use actual dyes like transtint , which can be bought at places like www.woodcraft.com and make your own colors . The dyes will add more color than a stain will because the dyes are concentrated