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Flooring Remodeling

staining red oak floors

last year

Hello, I just got new red oak flooring in my new home. I wanted the wood stained with a light natural look. I am aware that its hard to get that look with red oak but I would like some suggestions that may hep get it close to the look I want. I will attach photos of how I wanted it to look and how it looks with a stain of 1/2 silvered grey and 1/2 clear. These pictures are before the water based poly. Is there anything I can do? Another stain? My floor guy suggested adding simple white into the poly to lighten up the pink but then changed it up because he said it might make the wood look lighter. Any help please?

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Comments (5)

Suhair Najjar
Original Author
last year
Update….He already did the first coat of poly and all i see is pink!!! Is it just me
PRO
Kristin Petro Interiors, Inc.
last year
You cannot stain Red Oak floors to look like natural White Oak. The pink will always come through. Either replace your Red Oak floor with White Oak or settle on a darker stain.
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Comments (4)
Our guy applied large swatches (about 1 by 2 feet) of different combinations of stain to the actual floors after sanding so we could see the options in the actual space. Then he just sanded them off prior to applying the finish we chose. Keep in mind that you can mix stain colors and ratios to get the nuances you want. We ended up with a combination of two colors plus a "neutral" stain in a 1:1:2 ratio, I think. We wanted to emphasize the grain and the neutral did this since the stain is absorbed disproportionately by the open grain areas. I had looked at lots of photos online and had an idea of the look I wanted. I showed this to the flooring contractor and he brought several stains. After he applied the first one I'd comment and he'd make adjustments before the next swatch. He wrote the combinations on the floor in pencil next to each swatch so I could think about what we liked and didn't like. I think we had six or eight swatches. Long-distance, you'd want some good photos taken in daylight and artificial light. You'd also want some time to think about it!
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duraseal floor stains... refinishing and staining my red oak floors
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Comments (3)
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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staining red oak floors
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Comments (31)
Go to a flooring store and talk to them about their finishing options for red oak. If you find one you like, pay them a consult fee to provide you with the products and method to achieve it. Also get a quote on having them do the work. You'll be in a reasonably strong position to get what you want for the long-term. That's what's important. Present all the info to your builder. He can run the info by his flooring guy. Maybe it'll work out. You have a chance of success if you're proactive.
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Help picking floor stain for red oak floors!
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Comments (9)
I like the color you have! It is classic. Maybe not "on trend", but it won't be the gray floor of 2017 for the next 40 years either. Anything "Medium Brown" will be classic. Achieving that on red oak is not always easy due to the red part of red oak. Seriously, though, there is no easy answer to this without samples on your floor in your lighting. You can't make your decision based on pictures on the internet because of the variations in lighting and whatever your monitor does to colors, too. If you can't slow the process down to get samples, I would make my own samples by getting some unfinished red oak and staining it yourself. Be sure to add the top coat to get a realistic idea of what it will look like. Then you can move the samples around. However, you need to know what brand of products your flooring professional is going to use. If you have that information already, please share it and the professionals here will be able to give you some input on the quality of the product.
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Suhair Najjar
Original Author
last year
Thank you. I know this. I did not have the luxury of choosing white oak in this time.
tina kashyap
last year
@Suhair Najjar, I hear ya! Had been through this just last month. Nothing seemed to take those pink undertones away. Using Classic gray made it look light blue and we did not want that at all. But I did see comments from a few who mixed stains and got a lighter look. In our case, that was not permitted (it was not a custom build and the builder only allowed a few updates). For example, get a greener tone in a very minimal quantity and try a white / weathered oak / silvered oak. If mixing stains is allowed, try different ratios and find the one you like. It is cumbersome, but I would have gladly borne that toll, had there been a chance to do it. I really really wanted lighter floors but with the limitations we had, had to let that wish go. Hope you find a solution!
tina kashyap
last year
@Suhair Najjar, I see it is all done - my bad. I thought you were looking at stain options. Let us know how the finished project turned out!

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