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Flooring Design Dilemma Remodeling

Matching new hard wood floor with existing floor

last year

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the fuzzy photos but seriously need some help with flooring!
We purchased a new house and on the first floor, the family room has a carpet inlay (green part in the photo), while the rest of the area is hard wood floor.

Our initial plan was to replay the carpet with hardwood, then restain the current hardwood to match the new living room floor. But we went to a LL Flooring shop today and the lady told us it will be hard to match exactly, as they need to be the same height and width, then the restained color will always look somewhat different from new wood floor. She was seriously pushing us to just replace the carpet which I really don’t want to.

My question is, has anyone ever done similar project and was able to get a good match?

Thank you

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Comments (13)

Imma S
Original Author
last year
Sorry the 3rd photo is just to get an idea what the room looks like, it’s not our home
PRO
Beth H. :
last year
last modified: last year
looks like you have a standard oak flooring. call in a wood flooring specialist (not L and L !) and see if they can get the same species and size to weave in. it's done all the time

Then the whole shebang gets refinished.

make sure you get the same oak. there is white and red. they are not the same. you can see the diff on this pic:
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Match new wood flooring to existing?
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We opened up our kitchen to the LR (took out a half wall between them) Everything was red oak and really shabby. We also expanded the kitchen and thought we wouldn't be able to match the oaks, so went with hickory laid perpendicular to the oak in the LR and used varied board sizes. I was unsure how this would look, but I LOVE it! It is beautiful and my favorite part about the reno. The two woods were stained the same as we had the LR sanded and refinished at the same time. The difference really delineates the space since everything is so open....SO ..I think you can go with whatever wood you choose as long as they are in the same color family! Good luck! a href="http://s700.photobucket.com/albums/ww4/luvnlife_09/?action=view&current=P4160114.jpg" target="_blank">
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We don't have any plans to put a rug in where the transition area is. The area rug we had in there before was on the old wood side. There really won't be anything covering that space. On the step up area (which you don't really see in the picture), we also had some new wood laced in with the old (from the removal of a pony wall). The wood flooring extends from the end of the tile in the kitchen through the rest of the house. There are 2 boards width plus the step down edge and they actually blend a bit better. I assume part of the problem is the large space. @Jan Moyer - this is a great room, and other than the tile kitchen, the rest of the house is wood flooring (sans bathrooms). The step does suck, but we're living with it. The potential to change the stain on the great room floor would accentuate that there is a level change. There are, what I believe, are sander marks anyway, so re-sanding probably needs to happen. Going with some test stain patches is the best way forward I think. At least we'll have a better idea of what we'll have to live with. I'm just hoping we can get some warmth in the floor color without the more dramatic transition change (it is a bit more than what the picture shows but the picture does demonstrate the change).
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Thanks all. We removed the floor. Unfortunately as expected, that exposed more of a mess. Luckily, no "damage" to subfloor per say, but it looked like the previous folks who installed the floor used leveling "float" on pretty much the entire 700 sqft and in some place as thick as almost 1.5 inches. This made it very difficult to remove the layers of flooring (combination of engineered hardwood glued down and some solid wood nailed down to plywood, which was glued and nailed down to "leveling float", which was poured over OSB subfloor). The demo guy tried to get to the OSB subfloor as best he could but he stopped after 2 days of demo and when the OSB was starting to get damaged as it came up with some of the float. We have now moved on to filling the 3 very low areas with some plywood and then pouring self leveling float over the entire floor to try to fill in all to "holes" that were created by trying to pull up the previous float. I guess I am officially welcomed to home ownership.
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I'm sorry but the only option (to get what you want) is to sand and refinish ALL of it at once. If you had planned on that in the first place, your flooring professionals would have matched the species and the cut and the grade of floor. They also would have matched the THICKNESS of the planks. Or ideally they would have told you how it was going to turn out...and that the best option = remove the old and lay all the same floor. It is CHEAPER than doing a sand/refinish on Aluminium Oxide floors for the TOTAL square footage. Sigh. I think you have TWO different species of wood. You certainly have two different GRADES of wood (the new one has ++++ plank variation and HEAVY grain presentation. This tells me that if you sand all of this down you will STILL have two floors that look VERY different...even with the same stain. Right now my 'fix' = remove the old wood in the entrance/foyer. Use the entrances to the other rooms as the 'break'. Use the edge of the new wood as the break. Now you drop in stone or porcelain or vinyl that LOOKS like vinyl or porcelain. By removing the SMALL amount of old wood in the entrance you will REMOVE the eye sore that is 'mismatched' wood floors touching one another. It will do the 'most for the least'. Removing the old wood and prepping the subfloor = $2/sf. New stone-look vinyl tiles = $4/sf. Cost of install = $3/sf. Total cost of job = $9/sf. Size of the job? Looks to be about 100sf = $900 and you have a BEAUTIFUL foyer without ANYONE noticing the two woods are not the 'same'. It is the simplest, easiest way to fix this without messing around with sand/refinishing wood that shouldn't be touching one another anyways.
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Imma S
Original Author
last year
Wow is the 2nd photo after you had it done? It looks great! Did you re-stain the previous wood as well or just added new wood？
Fori
last year
Beth is correct! You need a hardwood floor installer, not a floor store. I've had floors patched after remodels, had them redone to match the next room that already was redone, etc. A good floor person can do amazing things.
Imma S
Original Author
last year
Thank you Fori! This makes me feel so much better. I thought my choices were to either redo the whole floor (which would be way over our budget) or to keep carpeting!
PRO
Beth H. :
last year
last modified: last year
M., sorry, this isn't mine. just using some pics to show you examples.

the 2nd photo is a red oak, completely sanded and done w/a natural finish. You'd be surprised at how beautiful old wood floors finish up!

Call in a professional wood floor refinisher and get some estimates. it won't be an issue to match your existing solid wood flooring.

https://www.svbwoodfloors.com/blog/wood-floor-faqs-whats-the-difference-between-a-lace-in-and-a-header/

here's a video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDqi5NAnTKk

look at this before and after

https://adamsfloors.com/installation
Imma S
Original Author
last year
Beth super helpful thank you so much!
Jean
last year
Yes, you need a hardwood floor guy. We removed a fireplace wall between our kitchen and living room, and moved a staircase...hardwood guy wove in the new wood to patch the spaces ino the existing 30 year old hardwood. You cannot tell at all unless you specifically look for the patches, and even then it is hard to see.
RedRyder
last year
We did the same with a tiled kitchen floor that butted up to hardwood floors. Our expert floor guy installed new matching hardwood, sanded and stained the whole house and no one ever knew the kitchen had been tiled. This can be done by a pro.
PRO
Diana Bier Interiors, LLC
last year
I did the same thing when I renovated my kitchen which had a sheet vinyl floor. Although the transition was only in a doorway, it came out great. Here's a photo--the upper part is 95+ year old oak (not sure it it was white or red), and the lower part is new (in 2014) white oak. They are both stained with Special Walnut. Also the upper part is 2 1/2" wide and the lower is 3" and 5" wide.

Flooring · More Info
mainenell
last year
This is a very common thing for real wood flooring specialists to do. Your wood likes like a really common wood and width. And the thickness is pretty standard. When you refinish the whole thing it blends right in. We did this one ourselves. The closet is all new flooring. There had been a radiator in the corner and there is a bit of water damage that we didn’t quite get all of. A pro would have had it looking perfect. Original flooring is over 100 years old. 2 1/4” maple is extremely easy to find.
Imma S
Original Author
last year
Thanks everyone! I feel much more confident about this whole project and we are going to stay with hardwood floor for the living area!
RedRyder
last year
Good decision! 😀

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