[mark sr]

The coloring of oak depends on how/where the tree grew. I've seen red oak that was very light and looked as if it might be white oak. There can be a lot of variance between trees. My first thought was the original floor was red oak.

I don't understand why they didn't try to stain those boards so they would have more closely matched the rest.

 

[Half-fast eddie]

The company owner said that red oak would have looked pink in comparison.

The red oak could look pinkish, and the white oak could look tanish. But it has had a stain and finish applied. You got a hack job.

 

[a&b home]

The grain is different between red and white oak.
I would say from my flooring experience that you have red oak floors

 

[mknmike]

The grain is different between red and white oak.
I would say from my flooring experience that you have red oak floors

I think everyone seems to agree they look like red oak floors. That’s where the sniff test and apparent chemical test conflict with the looks. I would have preferred to have floors that look like they match as opposed to floors that smell the same when cut or are chemically more similar.

Flooring company owner claims the new wood just needs to age and the poly on top of it needs to yellow.

 

[mknmike]

The red oak could look pinkish, and the white oak could look tanish. But it has had a stain and finish applied. You got a hack job.

I hate hearing that anyone thinks the extra $5k I paid just made it look like a hack job. Assuming equal prices for each of the three floors in the house, the “hack” work doubled the cost of the first floor and sounds like it makes it look like a “hack job” when I should have just left the original wood. Sucks.

Even if the company owner told me 1/5 of the people will look at the floor and think “this is a hack job”, I would have asked the wood not be replaced.

 

[mknmike]

The coloring of oak depends on how/where the tree grew. I've seen red oak that was very light and looked as if it might be white oak. There can be a lot of variance between trees. My first thought was the original floor was red oak.

I don't understand why they didn't try to stain those boards so they would have more closely matched the rest.

Apparently the difference wasn’t apparent until after Sanding Sealer was applied, maybe the first coat of poly too. The floor was then re-sanded in those areas and some “poly shading” was attempted on the new boards. I don’t really know why they didn’t try a stain instead. Maybe the thought is that a stain would have ended up looking worse in the long run. I don’t know.

 

[mknmike]

Another foresight would have been to pull wood up from a closet/less obvious location rather than install new wood in that high visabile location.

That’s true. More labor cost though for sure. The house has varying wood though. It’s pretty interesting. Third floor is all pine. Two bedrooms on second floor are pine. Two bedrooms on second floor are very narrow oak. Second floor hall is oak similar to first floor. There aren’t really any closets to work with on the first floor. Due to the baseboard radiators nearly everywhere on first floor (not original) I think even ripping up the whole office (stained) and using those boards wasn’t an economical option.

So I think replacing all the wood somewhere like the center hall or living room with the stains (a lot of wood and potentially very expensive) would have been the only way to achieve this I think.

Clearly we didn’t foresee the new wood being so off.

 

[a&b home]

You need to have the floor tested by a third party

 

[mknmike]

You need to have the floor tested by a third party

So I might be able to find a scrap that I tossed into my driveway trash pile for the old wood. They generally took away all the trash every day (and charged me for disposal on the receipt, just one $75 fee I think). So I most likely don’t have any new wood to test but might have some of the old.

And if it doesn’t match, what does that prove? Or what do I do? Demand it be replaced with red oak?

 

[mknmike]

Let me re-try this post below.

 

[zircon]

If you are going to do your own sniff test, white oak has little or no aroma while red oak when cut has a stinky swampy odor.

I would try rubbing brown paste wax shoe polish on the lighter wood and see if it helps. If it doesn’t work you have wasted all of ten minutes.

 

[MTN REMODEL LLC]

I've never tried PolyShades on flooring... I assume it would not wear well... but maybe it could be covered with a flooring poly also.

Has anyone else tried that...... you would need a fair amount of scrap to test your shading on it.... and obviously it has to be applied very carefully and evenly or it could look worse.

 

[mknmike]

I just brought over some Bruce Plano I have leftover from Home Depot on other projects, and I expected it to match the old floor much better, but now see that the old floor is significantly lighter than the Bruce stuff. The Bruce stuff matches my worn floors in my house really well, even the pine, but it doesn’t match the old floors in this house that was just refinished.

What the floor looked like before an after sanding:

Freshly refinished vs Bruce Plano:

Bruce Plano vs ~5 year old Bruce Plano

Bruce Plano vs upstairs unknown wood in my current home (good match IMO):

Bruce Plano vs walnut stain on old oak if unknown age since this was originally a porch in this house:

Bruce Plano vs 90 year unknown old oak (in same neighborhood as 100 year old floors this thread is about). Old dirty failed-poly floors look similar to new walnut stain IMO

 

[mknmike]

I've never tried PolyShades on flooring... I assume it would not wear well... but maybe it could be covered with a flooring poly also.

Has anyone else tried that...... you would need a fair amount of scrap to test your shading on it.... and obviously it has to be applied very carefully and evenly or it could look worse.

Right. I don’t have any scrap of any new white oak. I have no idea how polyshading might work. It sounds like it’s just darkened/colored poly.

Here’s all the original scrap I have. Not much, and obviously some stained.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[mknmike]

Here are some pictures at angles that cross some of the new light boards. So you can see that it’s not the type of thing everyone will notice when they walk in the door.

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[Matt1963]

Are you selling us or yourself? Construction is very subjective so it's always tough. One thing I do know is that most contractors want to please....in fact it pays off to please so I doubt anyone did anything intentionally.

Here's my red oak floors....finished 20 years ago. My wife changed the carpet layout 5 years ago and you can see how the window uv changed the color.

But even without rugs just stuff in general helps to cover.

 

[mknmike]

Are you selling us or yourself? Construction is very subjective so it's always tough. One thing I do know is that most contractors want to please....in fact it pays off to please so I doubt anyone did anything intentionally.

Here's my red oak floors....finished 20 years ago. My wife changed the carpet layout 5 years ago and you can see how the window uv changed the color.

But even without rugs just stuff in general helps to cover.

View attachment 728908

I’m trying to make sure I argue both sides. I’m not trying to be unfair.

Darkening under carpets. That’s what the flooring company owner was saying/suggesting. Cover it to darken it while the sun will lighten the exposed stuff, but filth that gets through a worn surface darkens the wood, which seems to be where the floor was, and where many of the floors in my home are also. I see now how it can be important to lay some poly on a floor even if you aren’t able to withstand the dust of sanding. Lessons learned.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Half-fast eddie]

View attachment 728838

Is that some of the old wood that was removed? Can you take a closeup of the end of one board.

 

[Half-fast eddie]

.

 

[Matt1963]

Well someone isn't right here. My floors darkened where it was exposed to the light. Under the carpet it stayed lighter.

You can clearly see in my picture where my wife moved the carpet back on the left of the picture.

Tough choices ahead.....I wish you the best of luck.