Q&A About staining your hardwood flooring. It’s harder than it sounds and is one of the more common steps to go wrong.
Q: From May 21, 2018 question – local builder who did our stain job on stairwell saying they did a good job. Stain has chipped all over the first year (only socked feet walk on) and original stained tried to do “touch ups” but the painters tape that he put down is now pulling off huge chunks of stain.
I’ve seen some other sites that say never use painters tape on stained wood. I think, like you said, if done properly it should not pull it off.
Q: This isn’t so much a flooring question, but you clearly have a history with wood, stains, etc. The owner of a building in my area is doing renovations. The old wood beams (I believe to be pine or cedar) have handprints forming on them. They have not yet been worked on or restored.
Q: Is there a way to darken a floor that has a ceramic finish? Gel stain? Another coating of ceramic finish with some color? (Our contractor was not truthful about color of floor and will not be hired again – a white maple floor does not fit in my 100+ year-old house.)
Q: I am installing circle sawn Doug fir floors. I see some colors I like, but they never say what stain they are! Which stain would be more of a chocolatey brown? I am trying to avoid the orange or red undertones.
Q: You say for pine it is a good idea to apply quickly from one end of the room to the other to prevent excessive blotching. I wanted to know if it is best to use a rag, a brush or sponge for that. I want to wait a few minutes after I apply the stain in order to get a darker color from it. I also plan to water pop before. Can a rag put a sufficient amount of stain on the wood to let it sit there and absorb? Or will a brush or foam sponge spread more stain evenly on top of the boards until I wipe off?
Q: We had our floors sanded, stained grey and polyurethaned. The stain did not come out even. When I asked about the blotchiness the professional said it was primed and some wood takes color better than other planks of wood. Is this true? If not, can I mix grey stain and poly to go over the areas that need more grey?
Q: I recently sanded down hardwood floors to apply a new stain. When sanding was over we were in a time crunch so decided to apply a 2 in 1 stain/poly. We made some application errors the first time around which resulted in dark lap marks. We talked to the company and they recommended sanding lap marks with a 220 grit sandpaper to lighten them up to the surrounding floor. We have done that and we just aren’t sure if we’ve done enough and we are timid to continue staining until we know we have. Any suggestions on our next steps to blend the floors enough that we will get an even finish throughout?
Q: I’ve clear coated several floors in the past year but my current project is my first dark stain on a large floor. In my first attempt, I failed in getting an even stain. I took it back to bare wood for my second attempt.
Q: I just had my floors refinished and a couple of days later, on the top stairs landing, I’m seeing 3 distinct darker spots. One spot is at least 6″x6″. All go across the boards. The guy that did the refinishing said that can happen with old wood. The house was built in 1942. He …
Q: I recently installed new prefinished, oiled oak floors and had to face nail certain boards. I filled the holes with wood filler to match and sanded by hand the areas with 150 grit to make them even. I have the exact two part oil (stain and sealer) from the manufacturer. Once I stained the sanded areas, they came out lighter in color than the existing un-sanded parts, leaving color varying patches.