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Flooring Design Dilemma

Help with light stain on red oak! Duraseal preferred

9 months ago

I have spent HOURS googling and reading blog posts about different stain mixes on red oak flooring. I came across this one I love but they won't share the stain mixture without paying for a full design consultation. Has anyone achieved something on red oak and are willing to share your mixture? Flooring guy typically uses Duraseal

Featured Answer

Timothy Winzell

9 months ago

It's difficult to determine whether the floor in the picture is actually Red Oak, but regardless of that there are two options I suggest. The first and easiest is to apply two coats of Bona NordicSeal. This lightens the floor significantly without turning horribly pink but will still have a rosy undertone. The second would be to apply two coats of 2-part wood floor bleach, followed by Bona DriFast White, which can be tinted if desired. Either option would then be coated by your choice of non-yellowing waterborne urethane.

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Comments (6)

PRO
G & S Floor Service
9 months ago
If, you want it that light use bleach first on red oak. Your finish should know which Duraseal stain color to use if, they use it often. Country white would be my choice top coated with a clear water based finish.
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G & S Floor Service - Will Nutmeg come out orangey on Red Oak? My husband would like to go lighter and doesn't mind a golden or reddish tone as he likes the look of a cherry woodd color but I really want more of a brown. Would Medium Brown work well? I would go for Jacobean but my husband is averse to how dark it is. He would probably be happy with chestnut or provincial and a cinnamon colored floor. :-) I would truly appreciate hearing from you as I have to give my floor guy 4 choices of stains to try out today!
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Sorry, I accidentally posted this prematurely & could not figure out how to edit or remove it. 😊 We are lightening up our floor, which was dark walnut with oil-based sealant. And we are extending it from the kitchen to the dining room & livingroom, which were carpeted. This time, we are going with water-based sealant, looking to cancel out the reddish tones. We just put in Dove White kitchen cabinets, with a light quartz countertop and off-white backsplash, with a navy buffet. It's a 1973 house we are trying to update, bit by bit. I'd call our style transitional, a blend of old and new.
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Yes...things look different from the sample patch (ahem...assuming your refinisher offered a sample patch ON YOUR WOOD floor) and from final application of STAIN. The stain dries or cures (can take a while depending on what it is made of...like 72 hours for oil based stain is very normal). Then the CHOICE of finish makes a HUGE difference. The oil based finishes (the cheap stinky ones that cause migraines and nose bleeds) turn orange. Each coat gets a stronger and stronger orange tone to it. It can cause white paper to turn orange/amber colour. These are the finishes that get darker and darker with age (oxidization). An oil modified finish can turn yellow. Not as harsh a colour as the oil finish but enough to get floors to turn colour. Again, each coat added creates a stronger yellow tone. These finishes ALSO get darker as they age...but not as bad as the oil finishes. Now for the water based products. These are what we call a 'clear coat'. They do NOT turn orange or yellow. They do NOT get darker as they age. Traditionally they are more expensive than the oil modified and can be much more expensive than the oil based. A VERY GOOD water based finish will be a 2 part product such as Bona Traffic HD or Loba 2K Supra AT. These are the big boys and they can triple the cost of the finish (compared to oil based). And then there is the lighting situation you viewed the floors under. The look of natural day light hitting your floors will be different from evening light with artificial lighting. Go ahead and view your floors at roughly the same time as you first saw them (right after the application). And while you are there chatting with the refinisher, go ahead and take photos of the FINISH or the can that it comes in. And feel free to up load photos with your colour patch that you chose vs. the finish as it looks now.
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"considering medium brown/weathered oak chesnut/weathered oak" Isn't that what is in your second photo? You say "my flooring guy is pretty useless coming up with combos on his own", but it looks like your second photo shows he is providing what you are asking for. Your top photo is not "medium brown/weathered oak/chestnut". I think the flooring guy is giving you what you asked for, but what you asked for is not what you actually want. Show him your top photo that you posted here. Here are photos of chestnut stain on white oak and weathered oak stain on white oak (a much more gray finish than it sounds like you want). So you need to give your flooring guy the correct instruction of what you want, and not blame him when you do not.
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TBL from CT
9 months ago
My old beat horrible red oak floors were sanded, bleached twice, then Duraseal white (not cut) was used, then Loba 2k Supra AT satin.
PRO
Yonder Way Design
9 months ago
You will pay a large upgrade cost for all of the extra processing, yet the rose tones will invariably shine through, even with bleaching. Save your money, and just clear coat what you have. Natural wood will always be appealing enough to outlast all the current and past fads.

Remember India ink stained woods? Indigo dyed wood? Red overdyed ”cherry”? Gray wood? 80’s whitewashed? People could not wait to get red of their whitewashed pink woods! Isn’t it odd that it has circled around again? And will be gone again before you know it…
Timothy Winzell
9 months ago
The popularity of white flooring here may wax and wane but it has never gone out of style since it's always new and fresh to some. Consider that floors periodically need refinishing, so it makes sense to get a color you like since it will probably be done again in 10 to 20 years.
Jocelyn Hartman
8 months ago
last modified: 8 months ago
I am working on the same thing. I have red oak floors and want the light look, too.- although not quite as pale as the floors you linked. I had beautiful light white oak floors at my previous house using 3 different Duraseal colors. I've done tons of reading and it just isn't easy to duplicate with red oak. And some red oak is redder than others. I was told that country white on red oak will basically read pink. Since I don't want a pink floor that is out. Refinisher who only uses Duraseal recommended just a clear sealer which definitely won't give me the color I want. And I haven't found any Duraseal products that will give the right look- unless you possibly bleach the wood first. I don't want to do this, so I'm looking at Bona's Red Out product which is fairly new. I'm meeting with a new floor refinisher on Tuesday who has some other ideas as well. I can let you know his thoughts. And I'm not too worried about light floors going out of style. I live at the coast and light is always popular.

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