This is easy. Your sister's flooring is white oak. Yes, you can find prefinished white oak flooring. However, don't expect any prefinished white oak floor to look as good as your sister's site finished flooring. But, you can get the overall effect by choosing well and having the flooring installed by a craftsperson who is concerned with aesthetics more than speed.

Thanks glenn,

I went to a flooring store today that had a gallery of site finished woods. I showed the salesman the pics (although they were not that great quality as I printed them myself on my home printer) and he thought they looked like red oak common #1. He showed me a white oak and it looked much greener and "dirtier" than my sisters.

I didn't like the white oak sample. What do you think?

White oak looks greener unfinished, or with a water based finish. Oil base finishes bring out it's beauty.

I don't think it looks like red oak. Not an expert, but I've been looking at a lot of white oak. Still, don't take my word for it.

I am not sure of the grade of the white oak that was on display, but it was finished with a clear oil based finish. It didn't look anything like my sister's floor. It didnt have the golden, red and brown colors of her floor. The white oak was more green and blackish even with the oil finish.

The red oak common#2 looked closest to what she has, but def not so close that I was like--aha--i have found it, as the display of the red oak common #2 still didnt have the same color contrast of lighter woods and darker boards in the golden, red, and brown tones.

The gallery didnt have red oak common #1 on display, but thats what the rep recommended as what he thought my sister's floors were based on the pics.

This is driving me crazy! But at least, I did like the red oak common #2 and I also liked the red oak clear 2 1/4" strip although it was a very different look from my sister's floors.

I do now know, that I don't want pre finished--so it's a step in the decision making process.

I still think white. Photo number four clearly shows two boards that have both heartwood and sapwood in the piece. I find that to be a visual clue that the wood is white.

How you finish and with what will directly affect how the floor will look. Make sure you find someone who will gi ve you the look you're after. Ideally, you want someone who will help you select the species and then the finishing.

What are you being shown that you are saying is "greener" and dirtier-looking than you sister's flooring? Is it swamp oak maybe?

I still think white. Photo number four clearly shows two boards that have both heartwood and sapwood in the piece. I find that to be a visual clue that the wood is white.

How you finish and with what will directly affect how the floor will look. Make sure you find someone who will gi ve you the look you're after. Ideally, you want someone who will help you select the species and then the finishing.

What are you being shown that you are saying is "greener" and dirtier-looking than you sister's flooring? Is it swamp oak maybe?

Hello,

thanks for all the responses.

I went to a flooring store that sells only to contractors, but they have a large room with about 20 different woods on the floor that are sitefinished to show customers what different woods look like with various stains, finishes, ect. One of the samples was white oak with no stain with an oil based finish. I didn't ask anymore questions about it as I didn't really care for it as it didnt have the gold, red, and brown tones I liked in my sister's floor.

I am going to show the pics to a flooring guy that is coming out to give a bid. My floors don't have to be exactly the same as my sister's floors. I just liked the color variation and the color tones.

One floor store said that to get the look of my sister's floors, I need to go with an oil based finish as it was the oil base that was giving the ambering tone. I asked him about using water based with an ambering additive and he said that would somewhat give the look, but if I wanted the look of my sister's floors, I should go with oil based. Another store said that I could achieve the same look with water based and an ambering additive.

What do you think. I will be moving out, but I have 2 young children and if I could get the look I want with water based, I would prefer that due to smell and cure time. But, since I am already moving out, if oil will be the best choice for the look I want, that's okay too.

Here is one more pic of my sisters floors that is a closeup.

Finishers use amberizer and some simply stain and then apply the two-part commercial waterborne after that. If you go the stain and finish route, then you will have to find someone who can do this well. If I was asked to do your floor, I would use the Bona DriFast stain formulations and then coat with BonaKemi Traffic. You can get that amber look with these products, but you have to know what you're doing.

Ask contractors for samples. If you're paying for custom work at custom prices, any worthy contractor will oblige by showing or creating samples.

thanks Glenn,

One last question, based on the pics above--do you think an actual stain is needed to achieve that coloring or just clear coat with amber additive. Or maybe an amberizer is a stain? I am not clear on the definitions of each.

My sister's floors are clear coat--no stain--but that may be due to their age. She is pretty sure an oil based poly was used.

Do you personally prefer waterbased products instead of oil based--why?
thanks so much!

Amberizer, which I never used, is a colorant added to the clear coats to give it that oil-look when applied to the wood. Stain is different...stain will color the wood directly. You could do both in your attempt to get the oil-look of your sister's floor.

I prefer to use two-part commercial waterborne polyurethanes for lost of reasons, prime reason being that oil based polyurethanes will go the way of oil paints in the very near future and I have no desire to work with a combustible finish and a product line soon to become obsolete. Also, commercial two-part waterborne polyurethanes have surpassed oil products in durability. And, waterbornes are fully cured in about seven days, as opposed to curing of oil products, which can take a month or more.

There are lots of ways to achieve the look of your sister's floor using certain products and waterborne top coats. You just need a custom finisher who can do this.

When I seek to get the look of an oil finished floor, I do sample testing directly on the floor. When I am confident that I have the combination of stains and colorants right, I then proceed to finish the floor. Any custom finisher will do the same. And, there is no "stock" way to do this. Different finishers have developed material schedules and techniques to achieve that oil-look. I just use the right DriFast stain formula and top coat to get the desired result. Some use a shellac sealer which colors the wood and then they topcoat that.

You can go to Floormasters.com and search their archives for threads where professionals discuss what they do to achieve the oil-look using the safer waterborne finish systems.

Good luck with your renovations.

I am no expert, but those photos look like my floor. I have solid brazilian cherry with an aluminum oxide finish. At the flooring store, as for samples of brazilian cherry and see if that is what you are looking for. I definitely have the golds, reds and browns, and love it!

thanks for all the help. Dancingsams--I know for sure they are not brazilian cherry--but that just shows how deceiving a pic can be. And, they really do not look anything like the red or white oak samples I have seen anywhere.

I have decided to get red oak. I just have to decide whether to go with 2 1/4" width or 3 1/4". I am leaning towards 3 1/4 as it is a large open floorplan dining/living room area. Any thoughts?

I am getting bids right now. One finisher said he can get a similar effect with bona traffic and a sealer. I will ask for a sample, but think that is what I will do as I prefer the convenience of water based.

As far as gloss, I like a somewhat glossy look. I have read that Bona Traffic has less of a sheen--is that true? If so, should I go with the high gloss--normally I would go with a semi gloss to get a bit of a gloss--but not too glossy.

Also, kind of off topic, but I know I read another post from someone thinking that the floors are red oak--but that post seems to have disappeared--I wonder what happened?

I appreciate everyone's help.

I have never used Traffic gloss (new to market). Traffic semi-gloss is quite glossy. Traffic satin (matte) you could say has a sheen.

As for posts disappearing...sometimes that is done when the site owner discovers commercial use of the forum.

thanks again Glenn. I just got off the phone with a finisher than comes highly recommended. He prefers using water based and his choice is Eukula--any thoughts on Eukula? The other finisher I got bids from uses Bona Traffic.

Never heard of Eukula.

I also posted this on the home decorating fourm, but I wanted to thank everyone who was kind enough to respond to my posts about picking hardwoods.
We chose site finished white oak 3 1/4" planks. The stain is golden pecan with a splash of red chestnut. The poly is three coats of semi gloss water based LNL 1500.

(We chose white oak vs red oak as white oak is supposed to be a bit more water resistant than red oak).

Here are some pics of the multiple stain samples we put down to chose the color and the finished floors. We have not put the baseboards on yet--we are getting new ones, and you can see we have tons of paint samples on the walls. Although I didn't end up getting floors that look like my sister's floors--I am happy with what we chose.

thanks again for everyone's help!

They are beautiful, great choice!

Beautiful! And which wall color did you choose?

Beautiful choice! I love white oak in the 3.25" board width or 3.5" or 4" width. I also love your choice of stain. If I ever move, I am going to go with solid white oak stained on the premises. I went with Brazilian Cherry in the 5" width to get the longer boards but I like the look of and the less movement of boards no wider than 4" and I love the look of white oak. I just needed prefinished and had my heart set on Brazilian Cherry which is beautiful but I am finding it difficult to keep clean.

What brand of white oak did you go with and what was the longest board length?

Really love your choice of floor and stain! Thanks for sharing.

thanks for the compliments.

As far as paint, we are going with SW basket beige and SW clary sage--we are compromising by doing both colors in the open floor space (even though the area is better suited to one color) as I don't want all beige and my husband doesn't want all green.

Lynn, I have seen pics of your floors--when I was researching and agonzing over what to get--and they are beautiful. I really like the brazilian cherry and I like the wider boards. My husband prefers the narrower boards--so we compromised on the 3 1/4" and we are both happy. We both like the Brazilian cherry color as well as the Santos Mahagoney color--so we did it the cheaper way with the white oak and a reddish color stain.

I had to measure my length as I had no idea of lengths--funny as I thought I knew every detail with all the research I have done LOL! It looks like the longest board is 6 feet.

The mill was Cumberland.

Kristenkr, I love my floors but I really wanted 4" wide boards but then I would have had to go with solid wood which now I wish I just installed the nailed down subfloor over the cement floor I have so I could have installed the hardwood that I could have gotten for less with the 4" width that I wanted instead of the 5" width which is pretty but I really loved either 3.25", 3.5" or 4". I chose the 5" in the end since the BR-111 3.25" wide boards longest length was only 48" so 6 feet that your floor's longest boards is NICE. I had no idea that you could line up similar color boards to make shorter boards look longer. I learned a lot from this first floor installation.

I do love my floors but it was so dry in my home office that I put two humidifiers on to get the humidity up to 30% and now the humidifier that was on the 2 drawer file cabinet (so it was too low and a new humidifier that dumped way too much steam in 2 hours) which made the boards swell and buckle up. I have had to keep the home office at less than 25% all week and finally the damage has lessened. I now put some heavy things on top of the boards. My boards seem to not be affected by the dryness but do not like too much moisture. I am back to using the ultrasonic more expensive humidifier on the other side of the room way on top of a 4-drawer file cabinet but have not turned it on for days as my nose can't handle the dry heart from my forced hot air heat. So I guess I was so upset I chose the wider width that is so affected by humidity but I wanted the longer boards.

I love your floor and I feel site finished solid wood is always best if your subfloor can handle it. One of my neighbors installed 2.25" sold wood and the other 3.25" solid wood with subfloors nailed down with special nails due to the concrete floors (not basements so we have slabs due to living in the wetlands) and they have not had any buckling of their wood or problems in years. The rest of my neighbors I guess don't put humidifiers on like I do. I just hate sitting in such a dry room all day.

I love the SW paint colors you chose. Please post pictures when the room is completed.

Thanks again for sharing. I do love my floors again today now that I see the damage is being minimized. I wish I never bought that smaller humidifier to add another humidifier to the room to try to get the humidity up higher. I guess I will live with 30% humidity and keep the humidifier way up high away from the floor. I will have to buy saline nose drops since my nose hates dry air.

On the bright side, my floors have not had any problems due to my little 4 lbs female Maltese marking and they clean up great with no black marks like the red oak did that I had in the foyers which were replaced with porcelain ceramic tile.

wow lynn, what an ordeal with the humidifiers! I had heard that there can be some dimensional instability with the wider boards, but didn't realize a humidifier could cause the movement. I am glad the floors seem to be going back to normal.

That is good that the doggie accidents are not ruining the floors. I have a little pug/shiztzu that also has accidents sometimes. My neighbor told me that her cat accidents had left black marks on her red oak. I was all set to get red oak, until I heard that. After researching a bit more, it seems that white oak is more water resistant than red oak. Plus, we used 3 coats of LNL 1500 which is supposed to be very water resistant. I hope so!

Had the finish worn off the red oak when the black spots started showing--or did the black spots show even when the finish was new? I ask as we had parquet floors redone about 10 years ago, and just about 6 months ago, pet accidents started leaving black marks (we never had the black marks before)--i think because after 10 years the finish had worn off.

It's funny about the board length--I never even thought about it--I am glad it just worked out in our case. It seems like no matter how much you research something--there can still be issues you miss.

Kristinekr, I did test various samples of white oak. red oak, maple. Brazilian Cherry, etc. by soaking the whole small board sample in pee that I collected by putting puppy pads backwards so that the plastic side was up and not under on the floor. The red oak when worn turned black (other side so I am sure deep scratched would not be safe with pee either). The white oak had no reaction to the pee so that is what I almost went with but the white oak I chose needed to be glued down and I had my heart set on a floating floor for some insulation but I see now I could have had the insulation by sealing the floor first.

The Brazilian Cherry boards also had no reaction to the pee. Some of the laminates swelled up badly and some of the thinner veneer oak boards had the veneer come off and I knew to go with the thicker wood veneer on top.

IT is % 24 humidity in this room which I hate but I think I better wait another week for the floor to dry out before trying again to humidify the room to get it up to 30% at least with the humidifier high up on the 4-drawer filing cabinet on the other side of the room that has no damage.

Amazingly the boards do not mind the dry air at all but my lips and nose hate it.

I will have to bring that smaller humidifier that puts out too much steam (my Ultrasonic humidifier has never caused a problem but then again I had it on a 3-drawer filing cabinet and it takes 10 hours to empty while the smaller one put out so much steam that in a few hours it was empty!

We all teach one another so be careful with humidifiers.

Again, I love your floors and paint choices. I can't wait to see updated pictures.

I am sure you are now glad you chose the 3.25" wide board and did not go wider. :)

Lynn, your testing makes me feel hopeful that my dog won't ruin my new floors! and good that I chose 3 1/4 inch vs a wider board LOL!

Pet accidents made my laminate swell as well--although it's cheap laminate. Good thing we love our doggies! Your little pups are adorable!

Kristinekr,

Glad I could help you love the width you chose which is what I wanted but I wanted longer boards than the engineered BR-111 had in the less wide width since my home office has a very long room that I did not want to look choppy not knowing how boards could be installed to look longer.

Lexi marks but makes potty either outside in the backyard or on the puppy pads. Due to her bad heart murmur, I could not find a vet to spay her before her first heat. She ended up going into heat early the day before the spay appointment and it was during her 2nd heat that she started this marking habit. She is only 4 lbs and amazingly lived so far to 6.5 years of age. The cardiologist has never met a dog with two holes in her heart that lived past 1 year of age. She is on a special compounded new medicine that is helping her but is not a cure. I had thought the wider longer boards would be less seams in case she marked. My other little doggies never mark and only make outside or on the puppy pads.

You will be fine with clean-ups of any mistakes your dog makes with your white oak floors and the coating you have on top.

I had looked into laminate but I got scared that if pee seeped in between, there would be a problem. The Armstrong shiny laminate seemed to do well on the tests but the other laminates did not.

Pictures please when your rooms are finished.