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Remodeling Flooring Design Dilemma

Refinishing prefinished red oak

4 years ago

I am in the process of trying to decide on a stain color. I have prefinished wood floors currently. that will be sanded. Right now they are red oak and are the gunstock oak color. I am deciding between duraseal golden brown, provincial, and early american. I will have new flooring feathered in in some places.

leaning toward golden brown

any advice? Things to think about? Anyone have pics of golden brown as i am having a hard time finding any posts with that color.

Featured Answer

PRO

Newell Remodeling

4 years ago

If your floor finishers are Pro's, you won't have any residual FLOOR stain. If the original floors also had any subsequent stains (burns, cat urine, oil spills on a floor who's finished was worn away, etc), THOSE types of stains likely run deep and could still remain even after a thorough sanding. If your original floors were in good shape, no residual stain!

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Comments (7)

PRO
Patricia Colwell Consulting
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago
You need to see a sample of that stain on your floor , red oak has a tendency to have a bit of pink undertone often. When I google it looks good but you need to see it in person.
HU-660575727 thanked Patricia Colwell Consulting
HU-660575727
Original Author
4 years ago
i do have samples on the new floor but not on the old floor that will be sanded. My fear is the old floor that is to be sanded could have some residual stain that may effect the color. The flooring people tell me it wont but i wanted to see if anyone has experienced that.

thanks so much for your reply
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You might want to read this valuable advice from SJ McCarthy written earlier today. https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5806177/difference-between-white-oak-and-red-oak-flooring SJ McCarthy The ORANGE you are seeing is the finish. The oil based polyurethanes are products that turn WHITE PAPER orange. It is called ambering. The red oak floors in the photo have been finished with an oil based finish. This is common practice but not currently attractive in today's 'white is best' flooring fashion. The issue I have with redoing the floors is this: The floors will loose 20 years of life if you sand/refinish them today. How do I know this? Because a site finished floor is supposed to offer 25 years of 'life'. A solid 3/4" hardwood (which I'm guessing this is) will offer 60 - 80 years of service (that's 3 sand/refinishes during it's lifetime). Each time you 'change' the colour (on a whim or due to current fashion) you cut down the life of your 'lifetime' floor. If you do this 3 times in 20 years (today, 10 years from now and then 20 years from now) you will have cut the life of your floor down to 40 years. That's half of it's natural life span. Balance deleted
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If you like your current colour then go ahead and put down a new version of it. If you want something different then I would go lighter. I love the look of red oak in the 'buff'. It is a pretty wheat/sand coloured wood. So long as you work with a high-end water based polyurethane that does NOT yellow, you will have a very pretty 'pale wood' floor without much effort. Your existing finish appears to be oil based (or oil modified) which makes the floor yellow. The strong gold tones in your wood right now = the finish. Did your refinisher apply a coat of FINISH over your colour samples? If they did NOT....then you are picking BLIND. And I mean screaming and crying and tearing your hair because your beautiful gray floors turned to a muddy orange mess. Not good. Do you see the pale colour of the raw wood? You can keep that colour (very close to it) with 3 coats of water based polyurethane like Bona Traffic HD. Keep the gloss level a snick on the low side (satin is a nice low-gloss option) and you keep that pretty 'swedish blonde' look.
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SJ McCarthy
4 years ago
Professional wood flooring sanding/refinishers will be able to take your current floor down to raw wood. There won't be any residual colour.

The question I have is how ORANGE do you want your floors to be? The colours you have mentioned are quite gold/brown (brown is a form of orange). Red oak will enhance the amount of red/brown/reddish orange. That is something you need to be prepared for.

And the FINISH is going to dictate how much your stain changes (oil based finish) or stays the same (water based polyurethane/clear coat).

Have your flooring refinished offer some stain patches for you to assess over a weekend. There should be 4-5 stain patches of different colours on your floor (I like 2ft x 2ft patches). These patches MUST INCLUDE a coat of your finish. The coat of finish is DESPERATELY IMPORTANT. It tells you the REAL colour.

You will view these patches in all 5 different lighting situations (early morning, mid-morning/noon, afternoon, evening, night time/artificial lighting). You will choose the colour you like the most in all 5 lighting situations. That's why you take the weekend to make your decision...and not 30 minutes on a Tuesday afternoon.
HU-660575727 thanked SJ McCarthy
HU-660575727
Original Author
4 years ago
I have had the samples down for several days. They did not put any finish on top...

i dont want orangeish reddish . What duraseal colors would u recommend me try?
SJ McCarthy
4 years ago
The installer will apply a water based product (must be water based and not 'oil modified') poly on top for you to view. I'm not a fan of DuraSeal...but take their MOST EXPENSIVE product they've got and require 3 coats.

Again, all of this should have been explained to you by your refinisher.
live_wire_oak
4 years ago
Your chance to get this right, with what you want, all depends on the work that you do in the front end to verify that you are working with the right licensed and insured contractor. From the lack of information and other things that are on board here, you may not have done enough due diligenc.

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