No, it is not pre-stained. They installed the tile first, then laid the hardwood in - it is oak. Then they grouted the tile and there is a small line of grout between the out tile and the where the hardwood begins. I am not sure what they put under the tile. My belief was the tile was supposed to be laid after the hardwood though to avoid this. Now the tile is about 1/8 to 1/4" lower than the hardwood all the way around. I am nervous traffic in and out will bring in dirt, water etc that will get trapped in the corners and weaken the floor.

hi. one other thing to mention besides stiletto high heels being dangerous and lethal to wood floors, is, if you have Both, a small And old house with an old floor, i don't think it's the best idea to hold Large parties there. not only don't a lot of women, and people in general, realize what and how much damage stiletto heels do to floors, But, most homes (especially smaller older ones like yours) weren't made and designed to hold parties, Especially Large ones of 90-100 people! i'm guessing if your floor was so Badly marked up and damaged that there was dancing?? if so, on such an Old floor, i take it that the room, And house, was probably bouncing and shaking like an earthquake?? lots of things shake and maybe fall over off shelves, etc., during these parties? you better also have your floor joists and support beams below inspected. chances are if you had these girls in stilettos dancing and jumping around at times on that old floor, you probably not only have significant damage to the actual floorboards, But the sub-floor, joists, and beams underneath! when contractors built homes like yours 'back in the day', (and some even Today), the homes are built to Live in and Walk around in, and Not have huge parties of So many people with needle-thin stiletto heels and dancing. they build clubs and bars for that. the floors contractors build for clubs and bars are built for Much more weight capacity and heavy activity such as dancing than homes. so, if there was Any dancing and jumping at All during these Large parties, i would have your floor joists and support beams below inspected a.s.a.p. before throwing Anymore parties. otherwise, you may not only have to worry about repairng a few floorboards, but also repairing the Whole floor and maybe you and your guest winding up in the basement, or whatever is below. also, although some women Do care about their floors and hate having them marked up and damaged by heels, i do know of some that actually Love to "leave their mark" in floors and totally damage and wreck floors with their thin stiletto high heels. so i'd check with some of your guests (maybe take a little survey) on that subject and see who may not realize what they're doing to floors like yours, but also, who Does And is Loving it. some of those girls may have done some of that damage and left those stiletto heel dents and holes in your floor and ruined those boards on Purpose. but now, on the otherhand, if the was No dancing, and your floor was damaged That bad from stiletto high heels just Walking around, i would Definitely do the "no stiletto high heels" rule in your house. (along with "no dancing") curious on some of these. good luck and hope to hear back from ya and hope your floor (both the boards above and the supports below) is gonna be ok.

We lived in Florida. Wood moves with the seasons, so glue would not allow the movement. Since we laid the floors ourselves in 1997, am working from memory here. We had plywood subfloor down then stacked the flooring in the air conditioned house for several weeks. We face nailed only. I really wanted an antique look and we used cut nails. All those are hammered in by hand. After all the flooring was installed, I mixed two colors of MinWax stains, Puritan Pine and one other ( memory fails me) in a one gallon paint can (new empty cans are sold by paint stores and Lowe’s) so my color would be consistent. No one else can be in the house for over a week while the staining and oiling are being done. Authentic Pine Floors gave me a formula for the finish I mixed in another unused gallon paint can, but I think I would use straight tung oil now. Tung oil must have five or six applications with sufficient drying time between coats. This cannot be rushed. We used tung oil on the cherry floors we laid two years ago in the kitchen of our current house and love it. Our Florida house had carpet upstairs for noise control, so I estimate we had over 2000 square feet of pine floors. My sister used the same material for her house in the Midwest 16 years ago and the floors are still beautiful. My daughter has about 3000 square feet of the same flooring, finished the same way. We all have dogs and active lives. Some people age their floors by dropping chains onto the surface, spreading sharp gravel on the floor and walking around with work boots to scratch the floors, or you can (with extreme caution) roll burning logs onto the hearth area to put a few scorch marks. Then stain and oil the floors. We did none of that at any of our three houses, preferring to let the floors show our history. All wood moves with humidity. It is not much, though. It certainly is not huge gaps.

If you want your floors to match, they need to be stained and finished with the same procedures and products. When you have new floor installed, concentrate on matching grain pattern and size of boards as well as matching the type of wood. Get unfinished wood and refinish the existing at the same time so it will all match. Then you can pick a color similar to the wood you have upstairs.