Here's a link to my old post. Thanks to everyone's advice (even though we decided to restain them anyway)!!!

Here is a link that might be useful: Redroze's old post on floors

This photo gives you a better sense of the colour - much lighter and more golden than our inspiration photo.

{{!gwi}}

Redroze,

I think you'll be much happier in the long run.

We are also playing the waiting game (today close to the 'Crying Game'). We were all ready to get the rest of our Tigerwood floors installed, have done all the painting, subfloors all removed and new ones screwed and glued in place, when I decided I really wanted Tigerwood floor registers, which of course have to be installed the same time as the floor and being a custom item, will delay our installation by a couple of weeks at least. Since they can't be returned, can't book the installation until they arrive... so dagnabbit (love that word!)can't believe I'm the cause this time of the delay- and that I've been waiting a year, crap why didn't I think of this during the previous 12 months that I've been waiting!?!

Sleeping in the basement in the kids' rooms (they've left home) is getting really old!

Dagnabit Raehelen! We are doing oak registers as well...would NOT regret it for a second as they look fab-u-lous! Darn, we may have to buy new unfinished registers because they were stained to match our new/old floors.

Luckily my very loving in-laws are letting us stay at their place, and my very loving retired parents are taking care of letting people in and out of the house.

Follow your heart. You've obviously taken the time to think it over and it didn't feel right. My DH and I have laughed and groaned over how the kitchen remodel just seems to snowball.

We're a month into our project, and it looks like a bomb went off in my house. Eating out is no longer a joy. And I anticipate another month of this as my GC won't be back on site until 6/23 to finish up.

Today we had hardwoods laid in our FR room which opens to our KIT/BR which are hardwood. This wasn't planned at the outset. However, seeing the new KIT layout come together, we noticed the adjoining FR carpet was a huge visual barrier now. Add another project to the list.

So, I'm suffering right along with you if having company helps! :) Best Wishes.

I, too, think you will be much much happier making the change and not second guessing yourself all the time.

Good Luck!

Boysrus2 - very good call on doing granite in adjoining rooms. It makes such a visual difference and makes the space look huge. I'm totally in the same boat as you, even though we have supportive family. I miss my home, my bed, I miss being able to make microwaved popcorn and watch movies with my husband, and cook!!! I want my home back soon, and I wish the same for you too.

Thanks for the warm wishes kkupstate!

red...t get any debth of color you must NOT use a water based stain. it won't penetrate. you need one that requires a respirator to apply! its the only way to get debth of color in red oak!!! and, to get the debth of chocolate i wanted, we added a jacobean stain (which has some black in it). in one coat it was the color you want...in two it got to the color i wanted. you must go way darker than you thin you need to with the initial stain on red oak!!! i learned the same way you did...only i'm o floor number three!!!

I hope they turn out exactly as you want them to. I am sure they will be beautiful!

I'm glad to hear you're going for what you wanted all along. Good choice.

Congrats on your choice. It must have been a hard one to make. I think you will be happier in the long run with the color you want. Hope you are lucky and get it done this week. Will keep my fingers crossed. Keep us posted.

Igloo - thank you for the tip on the Jacobean! Can I ask what specific stains you're using, the colour and the brand?

Our first try was an oil-based stain with three coats of water-based finish. He used a Duraseal stain called called Coffee Brown. Perhaps we should try Minwax this time??

Any tips would help Igloochic, thank you! This will technically be our third time too, as three years ago we were fooled into just adding tint to the top coat rather than staining. Hopefully third time's the charm for both of us!!

On my oak cabinets, after several different attempts at getting the "right" color via a custom mix of oil-based stains, the cabinet guy suggested first using an analine-dye on the wood, followed by a oil-based stain, folowed by a clear finish.

The dyes color the grain and the less-porous wood between the grain about the same, whereas normal stains affect the grain much more than the wood between the grain.

Also make sure to see the proposed final color (including the finish) on a sample that is as similar to the floor as possible, including smoothness of the wood, and the openness of the grain pattern.

Redroze -- I'm so sorry your project is in on hold. I was just reading a thread from a few weeks ago about cabinet hardware where you mentioned you thought our projects were moving along at about the same speed. We're currently on hold because I changed my mind about a sink at the last minute, meaning our soapstone installation is delayed (but I just checked the Fedex tracking system and the sink should be here Friday! Yea!).

Good luck with your floors. I really love that inspiration picture.

Bob - Thank you!!! That's a really good tip as I remember our KD was asking the stain guy if he could add some more black to it, as red oak tends to run more pink (while white oak is more grey). Big lesson learned for us - we will get a sample of anything and everything before we commit!

SW_in_austin - I was looking at my old posts as well, and remember how sparkly eyed I was when we were first demo-ing. *Everything is moving along so well!* Of course something had to go wrong. But that's how life goes I guess and things could be a lot worse. Your choice on the new sink though will always be implanted in your memory and you won't feel regret going back, which is always much, much worse than a minor delay.

i'll run over to the house and get the info for you from the jug on whaT WAS USED right after my surgens appt this morning. no min wax!!!!!! that stuff was crap (lighter than yours ended up being). i know mine was a sherwin williams proline product.

dye is one way to get extreem debth, which i want, but i don't think you're shooting to get that level of debth. my first shot with the sw product by the gc resulted in the flor of your dreams :) they unfortunately then applied a finish that was not compatible with the stain and it all peeled up :( so don't do that lol! let your floor guy tell you what works with this product instead of using a gc with no brains :)

We have red oak floors in our house (would NEVER be my first choice -- let's be generous and say it was a "miscommunication" with the floor guy) and we wanted an ebony color (darker than what you're after).

We had the floors installed before we moved in (from another state) and sent pictures and samples to the floor guy of the color we were after: ebony. I wanted to walk on a chocolate bar!

So we arrived the night before the moving truck to find these floors:

Beautiful, but not what we wanted. I'd been sooo good about not swearing in front of my kids (who were two years-old and nine months-old at that point) but walking into that I let it fly and then said I needed to go buy a real chocolate bar to calm my nerves!

The floor guy knew it was hard to get red oak a dark, full-bodied color, so he did pop it with water (which means liberally wetting the floors to get the grain to open to accept the stain) and then applied Bona's Ebony stain.

See for us, that's the rub: if he knew we wanted an ebony-colored floor and he knew red oak doesn't like to get dark and full, why would he choose to install red oak and not white oak or walnut? To quote my now almost four year-old "whatever!"

After a lot of research (and I give full credit to my husband, not the floor guy ...) my husband found that Dura-Seal's Ebony stain is the best way to get red oak really dark (after first popping it with water). (My husband found it through some Manhattan pre-war apartment remodeling forum, because evidently a lot of those gorgeous old NY apartments have red oak floors but they want the the ebony finish, and they have tried just about everything!)

And this is what we wanted and ultimately got:

You'll have a happy ending for your story as well!

Thanks for the informative post RM! Good to know that we can go with Duraseal after all, and that we just have to have him "open it" with water first so all the stain gets penetrated in. Do you know if it was Duraseal penetrating stain or the quick dry? Our guy used the quick dry and I'm assuming that the penetrating stain may be better.

Igloochic - thank you so much for looking for the specifics! Please don't rush (I had no idea you were in surgery) - kitchens are important business but not nowhere near as important as your physical health!!

I hope this answer does not come too late for you. my contractor had cleaned some things up and i had to do some real digging with my one paw to find it.

it's a shrwin williams (i'm reading this from the gallon jug)

Cemical Coatings:
Sher-Wood
BAC wiping stain
Ebony Base
S64 B 54
5012-48165

now heres where we get into trouble....the exact color number is obscured by stain...but the order number is clear and should get you the right color if thy call the anchorae ak, sherwin williams to look it up on the computer.

order date 08/08/07
order #8231-0046504
looks like something something 902 black walnut
custom manual match

my local office isn't open now...i'll phone in the morning to see if it will be easy to find, but the biggest issue was to get the type of stain right (two coats of this really gives nice color) but you're going to need to evacate the house to use this stuff and wear approved masks.

Dawn

It's not too late Igloochic! We couldn't get anyone to refinish and stain before our cabs are installed this Thursday. So we will do it afterwards - trickier since our perimeter cabs are white, but we don't really have a choice at this point.

I've read from rmkitchen and someone on the flooring board that Sherwin Williams products work on red oak. So I left a few pieces of our actual hardwood at the SW store and they will try to match my sample (a piece of white oak from my sister-in-law). There were two colour samples that looked close - I think they were Ranch Oak and Brazilnut (or something like that). He said he didn't need those colours, but would do a custom stain and that it's tricky - may need a little bit of dark added to it - but that most likely he'd be able to match it no problem, which is great!

I pick up the samples on Monday. If they don't look right, I will give him your very helpful information! I know your floors will be darker than ours though...so it may be tricky.

I'll post pics when I get the samples.

Thanks a million Igloochic / Dawn!!!

It wasn't rmkitchen...she used Duraseal's ebony. But it was you (Igloo) that used SW, and someone on the flooring board suggested it too.

Hope it turns out good - can't wait to see them tomorrow!!