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Design Dilemma Home Repair Flooring

Refinishing mismatched wood floors

last year

last modified: last year

Is it possible to sand and stain mismatched wood flooring to achieve a more uniform appearance? I think these are 2 different species of wood. I know the difference in grain/character would remain, but is it reasonable to think we could achieve a more uniform color?

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Comments (4)

Jesse Fay
last year
Yes but it requires 2 stains. This is due to how the stain will absorb for different breeds. If anyone tells you to use a poly with a stain, run. As it wears, it shows the wood below quite easily and thus is not good for flooring. Instead, sand down the area where the two meet, and take a stain you like applied over both in a small part of it. Let it fully dry. This will give you direction if you need to get a darker or lighter or color difference you will need to correct the difference. Keep in mind, you can mix together stains to custom make what you like!
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Patricia Colwell Consulting
last year
IMO you need a floor refinisher not DIY for this job. You will not get the "matching" results I think you are wanting unless you go dark so get a pro get them to show you samples and decide how badly you want this done. Big job and where will you live while they do it .
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Even without knowing the kind of wood or condition, I can't imagine replacing wood flooring in an 1890 home. In my opinion, the value is in the original material. If the floor is in good condition, it may not need sanding at all; a screening and recoat might be all that's necessary and the patina would be retained. There are many threads on this topic, try searching the Old House forum. I live in a converted schoolhouse built in 1890. The fir floors had been covered with layers of linoleum, glue, paint ... they were a mess.. but looked awesome after refinishing. That was years ago and I'm planning to have them screened soon (aka buff and recoat.) What kind of wood is it? Do you have photos?
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@zorroslw1 LOL I hear ya, I'm not too far from the edge myself, but I think this particular issue may actually leave me be! @grapefruit1_ar Thanks for your kind words! And to everyone else for chiming in! A small update: My renovation project manager came over to my apartment yesterday to discuss loose ends (house call on a Sunday... thank god he lives a 20 minute walk from me—plus, what a good dude!). There are a few blonde planks feathered into the hallway that are next to some much darker pieces. He agreed the floor guy should've chosen better pieces for the transition so they'll be replacing those. But cherry picking blonde planks throughout the kitchen floor and replacing them is going to be a bigger deal because they're locked together at the ends and stapled down (maybe he said glued down? I can't remember). So that's a no go and I'm fine with that. Anyway, I'm already feeling a trillion times better. I'm sure a slight nagging feeling will bubble up now and again, but I know those feelings (like the floor color!) will fade in time.
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I agree with Chispa. I wouldn't spend the money to try and match the oak to the maple. It will look like you tried to match and failed. I'd wait for now, save, replace kitchen flooring with oak and have everything refinished to match. On a good note, be thankful it's not different color carpet in each room. I get to live with that for now. :) If you really wanted to do something right now and weren't into waiting and replacing....I'd find other installers and see about having the maple stained darker. I think it would be easier to achieve a closer match than to strip and lighten the oak. If the oak is red oak, and I think it is, being a lighter color will show it's pink cast vs. more of a yellow cast that white oak has. Maybe they could stain the red oak more yellow. ?
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Ouch. That is a real nice clash going on there. Sorry that this didn't come up before you paid all that money. In essence you will be ADDING MORE to make this disappear. Like MORE area rugs than you can shake a stick at! And LOTS of art to pull the eye away from the striking colour clash. And the only other thing I can think of: YELLOW lighting. Yep. See if you can get rid of some of that gray/green in the kitchen flooring by ADDING yellow (warm) lighting to the space. The other thing to realize is all that pretty gray paint is causing the kitchen flooring to turn gray. And the answer to that is 'more paint'. Sigh....start with the lighting and go from there. All it is going to cost you is a package of "warm" bulbs. But be prepared to paint over the gray in the the kitchen.
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charles kidder
last year
Looks like different plank widths, so there's no way to make it look the same. I think the only thing you can do is to use a dark stain and maybe the plank width difference won't be noticeable.
ci_lantro
last year
last modified: last year
Looks like 2 different grades of maple. If it is maple, be aware that maple is very difficult to stain. IMO, what you have now is as close as you are going to get.

ETA: Perhaps with a bit of rearranging, you could use a rug runner sideways across the transition to soften the transition between the two floors.

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