Q: We used peroxide to bleach out some urine stains on our wood floors, then sanded them, and conditioned those spots. The rest of the floor has the polyurethane coating that was put down years ago, while the spots are very bleached. I’ve tried every color, trying to match up the sanded down spots to the rest of the finished floor.
Nothing works. Everything is too light. I even bought Waterlox, but the sanded down areas are still very light.
I’m hoping you can help me figure out how to match up the color.
A: Honestly, I think you are searching for something that is not possible. If you are working in the middle of the room, I don’t think you have a chance of blending this in. I can offer a few tips.
First, you want to deal with entire boards. You don’t work on half a board. One technique to make stain darker is to water pop. After you have sanded the boards in preparation, finishing with 100 grit, wet the area and let it dry. This will open the surface and allow for a darker color. But don’t expect to achieve an exact match.
People typically want to sand the wood with far too fine an abrasive which closes the wood surface and won’t allow proper penetration of the stain.
Follow-up: Thank you so much. And you’re absolutely right about it all. I tried everything and just gave up. Today I used the stain knowing it wouldn’t look great.. just to get it over with. The room has an area rug, and I will just put it back to cover it up.
Related Questions
Pet urine has bleached out a couple of spotsQ: Pet urine has bleached out a couple of spots on our red oak floor. Is there anything I can do to restain and match the floor to minimize the white spots from the pet urine bleach effect? A: You could try just sanding down and refinishing the affected boards,…
Pet urine stainsWe just purchased a home with hardwood floors throughout; however they all have dark brown stains. We do not know if it is from water damage or from pets; my husband think they are urine stains from the previous owners pets. We would love to keep the hardwood floors and…
Repair is unevenQ: A floor man corrected our buckled oak floor - just a small part. Now that part is uneven. What do we do to fix the uneven wood floor repair? A: When a repair on wood flooring is done, it still needs to be sanded flat. Depending on the age…
Small pet stains on floating floorI found your web site while searching out how to manually try and fix several pet stains my dog has made on my hardwood floors. I have floating hardwoods that I believe were put in on top of a tile floor. Unfortunately the dog has had a couple of accidents…
Pet stains and hardwood flooringMy husband and I are considering laying parquet flooring in our living room and removing the carpet b/c our dog cannot seem to stop staining the carpet. We feel hardwood would be better but after reading your website I see that pet stains are a problem with hardwood. Is there…
Repair wood puttyHow can I repair wood putty from finished floors? I've had my wood floors finished. The wood putty used was the wrong color and is now visible and dry. I'd like to repair without damaging/scratching the rest of the floor.