Wood stain for oak floors to look like natural white oak.

6 years ago

I want my red oak floors to look more like white oak floors with liming. Any suggestions for how to make red oak look more like white oak?

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Comments (4)

PRO
User
6 years ago
Sorry, but you cannot get the pinky red undertones of red oak to ever look like white oak. You have to start with white oak.
PRO
Cancork Floor Inc.
6 years ago
The amount of effort and money it would take to get this to work is getting into the same amount of money as floating a laminate floor over top and trimming all your doors.

White oak is yellowish. Liming removes some of the yellow (not all) and adds a pretty "silver" appearance on the surface. Red Oak turns PINK in the presence of "white" or silver. Oh dear. Not good. Salmon coloured flooring went out with the 80's.

You would pay your HIGH END professional (and I mean "artisan refinisher" who has an opening sometime next spring) to BLEACH the SNOT out of your red oak. Then some conditioning would occur. Then the the stain would be purpose mixed just for you. It could take several days for him/her to get it right. Then the application would happen and you will pay the astronomical price s/he asks for/deserves.

If you try to find a "flooring guy" to do this, you will pay a better rate...but the failure rate will be SUPER high...and you will probably have to hire someone else to fix the mess created by the first "flooring guy".

I will say this look is *possible with your floor but not *probable. The amount of effort you have to go through to get this "right" is huge. And the chance of failure is very very high (that's where the 'not probable' comes in = statistics term).
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David Haeri
3 years ago
I bleached my red oak floors - twice - not that expensive and used a reputable flooring company. Then made a custom stain. Looks like white oak. But I wonder if I should have just gone darker to get red out.
David Haeri
3 years ago
My floors are light and lovely.

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Wood stain for oak floors to look like natural white oak.

Comments (4)

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Cancork Floor Inc.

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