Matching new (heart pine) hardwoods to 95 year old hardwoods

Q: I had termite damage in one room of my 95 year old home. The room required new flooring. The other rooms have a dark, consistent appearance. The new flooring was stained, but its appearance is noticeably lighter and the grain is heavier.

My flooring contractor said the new flooring is heart pine, but compared to the original heart pine floors, it will lack the red or darker tones. Should a stain get the appearance close (tone and color)? Or am I out of luck trying to match new hardwoods to 95 year old hardwoods?

A: In 95 years the new pine will be a much closer match to the original. 🙂

I did a job recently for a contractor who had me stain new pine an orange color. In his mind, this colour is to make the pine look old. As far as I’m concerned, they look like new pine stained orange. I don’t know of a way to duplicate natural aging.

Similar Q: My fiance and I just had our floors done and the guy had to fix existing holes from the old heating system in the floors. He added short new planks of wood, but we have old pine floors and the wood is so much lighter then what our floors look like. He sanded and did 3 coats of poly. How do we fix this problem? Is there a way to do so?

A: The new wood is going to be lighter in colour. It will darken with age. A possible alternative would be to take up some existing planks from an obscure are to use for the holes and then fill in the obscure area with the new wood.