Hi emmie! When we redid our LR and took out the carpet, we found hardwood (I think it is white oak with that honey colored mellowed poly finish) on part of the floor and slab or linoleum on other parts (from previous remodel). Our GC examined the wood and did a fantastic job of choosing the correct stock and finish. His finish carpenter meticulously "cut in" the new wood into the old by cutting back some of the old in a staggered pattern and adding in the new. There are a few places where you can "tell", overall it has a remarkably uniform look. I'll give you his info if you need a contractor who does this well. Just e-mail me. Julie

most professionals will tell you that you most likely would have to sand and refinish the entire area. One possiblility is to use prefinished on the new section, but doubt you'd be happy with the result. When I replaced my kitchen floor with wood it had to blend with the 50 yr old wood in lr. When I sanded the whole area the two areas blend very well.

CE - just found your note and wanted to follow up. At the GC's suggestion, we waited until they were ready for the final coat. They came and did the one room that was separate from the rest of the house. After 3 days of curing, I went in to wipe it down (with a wet cloth), to verify it looked ok. It was a nightmare - not only had pieces of lint and dust gotten into the finish, but they also managed to seal over areas where the painters had managed to drip paint on the 2nd coat - it wasn't a lot of paint, but small drips and smudges permanently sealed under the poly. And they were scheduled to come the next day to do the rest of the 1st floor. I sent pictures to the GC and told him that either the painters or the floor guy needed to verify that all the paint was gone from the rest of the floors before putting down the 3rd coat in the rest of the house and that we needed to meet to discuss what to do about all of the paint, hair, lint, etc. that was already sealed in the poly. I then spent the rest of the night, washing the entire 1st floor on my hands and knees, marking all of the paint, dust, hair, etc. in both parts of the house. The next day the painters came and cleaned all of the paint that was on floors that didn't have the 3rd coat applied. The floor guys came and scrapped by hand all of the places where they had sealed in the paint and where lint and dust landed on the floors. the day after that they came and redid the separate room and the rest of the house. After all of that, there were still a few places with paint in the original room that they had missed. They used a special lacquer pen of some sort to mark over the few spots and you can't tell there's paint under the poly. The floors finally look great, but, I firmly believe only because I spent the time on my hands and knees marking every spot. The floor guys blamed the painters for being so sloppy and the GC for removing the paper covering too soon (before the painters were completely finished, as they had to return about 16 times before we would sign off on their work - lint in the paint (I think they quit cleaning their brushes at some point), areas where they didn't prime the wood before it was installed, so they just painted it, and it raised the grain, so they had to go back and sand then repaint), areas where the switch/outlet covers weren't flush with walls (painters were responsible for finishing the drywall) - and when they did things like just try to fill in around plate covers without removing the covers, we removed the covers and had them do it again. A lot of work on our part, but it seemed to be the only way to get them to do the work correctly. And the GC just left it up to us to identify anything we didn't like. I did get tired have having them come back again and again, but I also knew that if they didn't fix it, I was going to be the one who was going to fix it, because I certainly wasn't going to live with having to look at all of the flaws in their work. After a very long 9 months, we're very nearly finished with the project. Whew...

I have white oak floors throughout. Pictures will tell us whether red oak was used. Please post a few.