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We have a brand new maple hardwood, factory stained a dark brown/reddish colour. Our stairs are also maple and stained by the home builder, chestnut brown. The 2 colours don’t match well and we want to find out how to find a better match and restain the stairs.

I have natural cherry wood floors. Today I got them sanded and polyurethaned, and now the stairs that we’re previously done looks darker. They have never been stained and contractor says they used oil based poly w/ high gloss. Why doesn’t it match, and can it be fixed?

I recently installed and finished a hickory floor myself. The install was tough, but it came out great. Sanding went well, but finishing left streaks and blotches (did an oil modified sealer then water based urethane). I wasn’t happy, so I resanded the floor back down, and this time did a water based sealer and then water based urethane. No streaks, but I do have the occasional lap mark where I needed to turn the t-bar around when dragging the puddle of finish. Any ideas on how to get rid of these? I have 1 coat of sealer and 2 coats of urethane. I am thinking of screening\sanding them down with very fine (300-400 grit) paper once the floor is cured for a few weeks. Any advice? And yes – I just found your Q&A, and you are right: leave the finish to the pros – it took me three tries to get the floor to where it is now!

I purchased some oak hardwood flooring. I used an orbital sander on the floor. It’s a pretty small area. I do not notice any scratches on the floor. I’m wondering if this will suffice for me to start staining.

We are considering having our natural (no stain) red oak flooring (3/4″ thick) refinished with a dark stain and 3 coats of premium oil urethane. We have been told that a dark stain will show scratches (from the dog), and marks far more than the current natural floor does, and that we will always be touching up the scratches (if that’s even possible to do.) What is your experience with dark stained floors and wearing capabilities?

I am refinishing my 45 year old oak floors. When I removed the carpet there were 3 dark stains. I figure it is pet urine. Sanding is finished, but the stains are still visible. If I apply a darker (perhaps cherry oak) stain, will it hide the urine stains or will they just get darker? Could I apply less stain to the spots to try to even it all out?

…color of stain should you use on white oak floors to make them dark? Such as an ebony color.

I have a wall to wall rug that has been in my apartment since way before I moved in (more than 10 years), and I would like to remove the rug. Can I stain the hardwood floor without sanding first? I understand that I won’t know what condition the floor would be in, but I am looking for a easy way to make the floor look decent.

We are looking at purchasing an engineered hardwood floor for our kitchen – maple / graphite dark grey. I was told by a someone that dark grey stains don’t wear as well as they don’t penetrate as deep as other “lighter” stains. Is this true?

I recently sanded my white oak floors and used a Duraseal quick dry stain. After wiping the floor diligently and leaving it dry for 3 hrs., I returned to apply the first coat of waterborne finish. There was some bleeding of stain between boards which I wiped before applying finish. After this first coat of finish dried, I noticed more bleeding and it seemed to get worse. Can I fix this without resanding the entire floor?

Is there a way to darken oak flooring that has been refinished, possibly a dark wax or a colored shellac? I would like to obtain a color similar to my fir doors and windows.

We have oak floors and we’re having them stained, however, the stain is very uneven in color. We are using a very dark wiping stain. It’s almost like you can see areas where the sander stopped and started. The floors have now been sanded out twice and re-stained twice. The second staining was even worse. There are a lot of “lite” blotchy areas throughout the floor. Some areas are dark (which we wanted) and some are light. The finisher does not use a vacuum. Does this matter?

My husband and I are building a new house. We are putting hard wood floors in every room except the kitchen and bathrooms. We are putting in cherry color floors. Should I do the oak doors and all the molding in the same color?

Is there something I can do to make staining a hard wood with a dark stain easier? It takes me so many applications to reach the desired darkness. I used Special Walnut (very dark oil stain) on both maple and cherry, and it takes so many applications.

I recently bought a house in severe need of full remodelling. We are to the point of redoing the hardwood floors. I want to stain the white oak to a dark mahogany colour. I want to put down a layer of polyurethane first to seal the wood and then go over it with a poly/stain mix, then more polyurethane. My idea on this is: If we ever want the light colour back, we can just sand down to the wood. My questions then are: Is this possible? And, if so can I mix the stain and polyurethane (in what percentages)?

I just had my pre-finished red oak floor refinished with what should be the same color (gunstock) and 3 coats of oil-based poly. The wood grain is so much more noticeable than it was in pre-finished form, and I don’t like it as much. Will this difference fade some over time and will the ambering of the poly affect it? My installer says in 2-3 months the grain will not look as dark. Thank you for your response.

My husband took on the task of refinishing our wood floors. However, when he applied the stain, it was uneven and blotchy. Do you have any suggestions in correcting this problem?

We just had the hardwood floors in our house refinished. After sanding the floors, the contractor applied the stain to the floors. However, we now have multiple stain spots on the walls (at different levels on the walls and not just at ground level) in those rooms. Is it expected that you will have stain on the walls and that you will have to repaint those walls after the contractor completes the refinishing job? Or, should the contractor have put up some sort of protective covering along the walls to protect the walls from splatter during the application of the stain to the floors? The contractor is telling us that having the splatter on the walls is expected and that we should have known that we would have to have the rooms repainted after he was done with the floors.

We have stained our hardwood floors and really did a terrible job. Is there a way to correct this? Is it possible to remove the stain?

We are installing a new hardwood floor, and chose a dark stain on birch. We’ve snapped a few pieces together to see how it looks and noticed that the edges are not as darkly stained (like the bevelled edges didn’t take the stain as well as the top of the wood). Our room is very large with lots of light. We’re concerned that we may have light lines running all around the room. Is this common with dark stains on light wood?