Q: We had pre-finished hardwood installed in our home when it was built. It was everywhere except the great room. Recently we decided to put wood in the great room but that pre-finished wood color was no longer available. So, we installed unfinished red oak, got stain custom matched (it matches perfectly) and put down the coats of poly.
DIY or Hire A Professional?
Spoiler alert: be sure to see our recommendation to hire a pro. It’s linked to in our left sidebar.
My husband broke all the rules when it comes to staining wood
Q: My husband broke all the rules when it comes to staining wood. Aside from a light mopping, he did no prep at all. No sanding, nothing. Then he applied wood stain to the floors. It is 3 days later. The floor is dry, but still a little sticky. Now there is sand popping up all over the floor, underneath a 6×8 rug that he replaced on the second day.
DIY buff and coat for worn and scratched wood floor
Q: I have a wide plank soft pine floor, 20×20, with a polyurethane finish. It has worn spots and my dog has left scratches. *I* want to re finish and would appreciate any info/how-to.
Dots all over floor in DIY stain job
Q: I’m in the process of staining my floor and there are a whole bunch of little, tiny colored dots all over the place. Can stain have air bubbles? How can I fix this so that my floor looks normal?
Does it need to be professionally redone?
Q: I took 20-year-old carpeting up and have 80-year-old pine floors underneath. I sanded with a machine and sandpaper recommended by a local home store, then stained with a stain recommended by another store (only one coat, and nothing else applied). The sander left marks on the floor from its wheels, and never did sand all the old dark stain off.
Splotchy DIY stain job
Q: I recently sanded and stained the floors in my recently purchased house. I have red oak flooring, and really like the way the hall and bedrooms turned out. However, in the living room there are splotchy areas. They tend to be really light like they didn’t take the stain. Is there any way to even out the floor despite the stains?
Should the sanding option only be done by a professional?
Q: I removed two layers of very old linoleum flooring (over an oak floor) in a seven by twelve foot kitchen. Used Contractors Solvent to remove black mastic adhesive and paper residue with wide scrapper.
I cannot afford a professional
Q: We removed 3 old layers of floor in the kitchen and found a 3/4 inch oak floor. It had many staples in it. We removed all of them. Should we wood fill them in, sand, wood stain and put polyurethane on or…?
How to find a good flooring professional
Q: Can you help me determine how to find a good flooring professional. In our previous home we hired a well known local company to install engineered hardwood and had 3 years of issues from underlayment issues to panels moving. We want to have hard wood installed in our new home but I don’t know what to ask to find someone who can do the job well the first time.
Fixing a DIY blotchy stain, dirty finish job
Q: A person helping my boyfriend re-finish my hardwood floors used a non stain-able, yellow carpenters wood glue to float the entire floor. The floor ended up with a blotchy stain job, so we re-sanded. Do you know of anything that may work to remove it or cover it up? Do you think we can cover it up by going over it with the correct product? Do you think we can use a stain with the varathane already in it or that a gel stain will work?