Pale but durable wood floors
We have 4″ white oak boards in the parlor floor of our house, including in the dining room and kitchen. We finished them with a pale stain just 3 years ago, and they are looking very beat up already. Do you have any advice for keeping the wood light but the scratches/age minimal? I don’t want to heavily varnish them like in a gymnasium, but I really don’t know what else to do. Help!
nsloper
in General Discussion 6 years ago
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26 replies
angelique.m.west | 6 years ago
If you do oil finish you are probably going to need to vacate your house for a few days. The fumes are overwhelming (and maybe even toxic) and carry from to room to room quite easily.
stevecym | 6 years ago
ok, nsloper, the water dries fast. 2 hours plus to recoat. oil is overnight. oil also stinks.
Dork, with oil three coats of high build (two over a seal coat) is sufficient and all that is recommended as if it is too thick it will chip. WATER base takes FOUR coats and they say this on the can. screen after the first coat. two coats in a day. it does not build the same as oil. check out Basic Coatings Street Shoe but if you use that pricey product, you had better hire the right person.
as i wrote this i took a glance at my kitchen that has 4 coats of water base on it and no, it did not build like the oil. the mrs was pleased though.
nsloper | 6 years ago
You know, that is what I think happened. I kind of remember waiting through two coats of poly to dry. Bleh. I guess now I know!
dorkofwindsor | 6 years ago
Nsloper – i have seen numerous water poly installs By pros that are just sub-par. No where nearly as thick as they should be. They way they are coating is too thin. One coat is totally insufficient and two is still a joke. I need to do floors soon myself and have much research to do., sorry i cant be more specific than that. Most of the floors i have seen still have raised grain popping through from day one. One of these was on an original white oak floor. I’m so disappointed By what I have seen i may just buy factory finished floors.
hkapstein | 6 years ago
Interesting, I don’t think it will hurt to try the rejuvenate, if that extends the life of your finish then why not. It’s smart to work incrementally and avoid stepping onto a slippery slope that leads from screening a floor to doing a major remodel.
Also, I wanted mention to cate that she should not lose any sleep over not building with gloss. The floor sounds like it’s fine, and I’ve done this myself on small projects where I didn’t want to buy two cans of varnish. I doubt mixing sheens would have caused your color issue. If anything building with gloss will usually give a better appearance since too many coats of deglossed varnish can develop a hazy or plastic look. But if you’re happy with the result and it’s holding up to your lifestyle I wouldn’t think twice about it.
If anyone crunchy is starting a new project, it’s probably best practice to build with gloss.
Regarding water based poly over a pure oil finish, I doubt this would work. If the oil is working as it’s supposed to, water should bead up on the surface and that would prevent the water based coating from being applied. However, you could concievably put one coat of shellac or oil based varnish over the oil and put water base on top of that. Water base over fully cured oil base should work, the key being that the oil itself is gone. To be fair, I’ve never actually tried putting waterbase onto a surface that contained oil, so if there’s a way to do it I’d be interested. I did once try putting linseed oil on an outdoor project before applying spar varnish to it, and I was happy with how that worked out. It seems to buy a little extra time after the varnish starts to fail before the wood itself starts to turn grey. However I’m not sure I have enough experience to recommend that in general.
stevecym | 6 years ago
bob, those things you recommend should always be the go to for the beginner or homeowner. my mom used stuff like that in the ’70’s and i learned a lot with them before realizing i could make my own. we don’t use them only because we are beyond them in terms of already having all sorts of oils, tints, and varnishes in house (even if we don’t use them, they are here from jobs past). once a home owner uses the kits, they can move from there and take say an oil (straight) or with thinners or driers and add tints (transtint or moxil, forget the stuff the corner paint store has). but the tints are expensive to buy for something someone may do twice a year so unless the user needs a bizarre color, those kits win.
i’d say with all the plugging you do of the rejuvinate product, we should all be looking to invest in it:-)
RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 6 years ago
stevecym: no vested interest in the Rejuvinate company :-). I think their advertising is actually pretty tacky, but the stuff was recommended by a neighbor years ago and I’ve found that it’s cheap, easy to apply, and works really well–MUCH better than my old floor buffer and paste wax. If it doesn’t work on a floor it’s always possible to proceed with more drastic measures, but my floors were sanded and polyurathaned in 1974 and look good with an application of Rejuvinate every few years. I’m pretty sure there are other similar brands that work just as well but I haven’t found the need to seek them out. Another product I always recommend, for furniture and woodwork, is Howard’s Restore-a-Finish. No connection to that company either, but I DO like shortcuts that work well.
stevecym | 6 years ago
if you take some alcohol on a rag and rub a little spot in the corner, if it works the finish a little (flattens it, removes it) it might be water base poly.
for others who’ve been reading this and are thinking they want to tackle a screening job themselves or even want to know about product to suggest to a contractor doing a floor: do not go to the corner paint store or lowes for floor finish. Sure, they will carry Varathane and minwax oil products, but that is it. Visit Capital Wood Floors on Third ave under the BQE or in Maspeth; they have walls and walls of flooring finishes from budget products to high end commercial products with cross links that can be added and they know enough about the product to advise you. I think they carry the best selection but other shops include New York FLooring in front of lowes and a shop by the McGuinness Blvd exit on the BQE.
nsloper | 6 years ago
Generally the problems are just on the finish, except right by the sink. We had a comfy foam mat there, and unfortunately, it seems that it retained water underneath each time we mopped. We got 1 or 2 years ago, and when I lifted it up this week after a big spill, I see that the wood underneath has warped. Augh! Just a word of warning: plastic foam mats are NOT rugs, you will not see the wet underneath, and real damage can happen to your floor.
… I am thinking of just putting a rug over it for now, after the Rejuvenation. Not a permanent solution, obviously, but it will do for now.
nsloper | 6 years ago
Thank you, everybody, for the replies! I think there was a coat of satin poly applied after the stain, because there is a light sheen to the floor that I don’t think would be there on bare wood (correct me if I’m wrong, through!) I am going to try Rejuvinate because (1) I can do it myself, and (2) I am hoping not to have to sand and refinish, because we are living here and don’t want to deal with dust getting everywhere.
stevecym | 6 years ago
cate. i am wondering something else here. if the finish you used had a tint in it. People should be aware of this: some water base floor finishes come pre tinted with a little amber in it so it looks like the old oil poly we are used to. there are also still clear water bases for those who do not want the amber.
i am wondering if yours had some tint in it and it did something. tinted top coats sometimes do bizarre and unpredictable things depending on what was used to tint it. lighting can effect the tints in different ways as well – i sometimes think colors refract off each other in bright light but i may be wrong.
sorry folks who do not like my excessive posts, but this is to the point of the discussion and from experience.
stevecym | 6 years ago
cate, something else must have happen there. it is a very common practice for us to mix sheens, not as a wet product, but coat over dry coat. we use gloss to build and then finish where the customer wants it. it is probably done this way because of what urbanded said, about the durability of the gloss but also the build. i face this many times a year and always build with gloss. it is actually the way we are taught from day naught.
i just called Pettit varnishes yesterday with a heap of questions and the tech guy stated that flatteners weaken the product and building should still be done with gloss. so nothing has changed in the industry in this regards with finishes.
cate | 6 years ago
Urbandad, with all due respect, in my experience, it is not a good idea to mix the sheens. As a matter of fact, we did two coats of satin and it looked marvelous — actually you couldn’t see the poly, so we became concerned it would not be durable. So we added a semi gloss on the next coat. Big mistake! The walnut stained pine floors turned crazy colors and dark. Then we had to try to sand it off which wasn’t entirely successful — the floors did not return to their former beautiful hue but are now a bit on the red side although thank goodness no longer striped yellow orange purple etc. — and took the remaining wood with it. Then we finished with two more coats of satin. The stairs never had the semi gloss, only four coats of satin and they look incredible and both the stairs and all the floors have held up unbelievably well. Anyway, the point is, four coats of satin is very durable and will not darken or change the color of light floors in my experience. (We als o sealed the wood before staining.) I highly recommend using an experienced professional, although oak is easier to deal with than pine.
stevecym | 6 years ago
keep in mind, OP cannot screen stain if that is what is on their floors.
stevecym | 6 years ago
DIBS: i think bob has a vested interest in the Rejuvinate company.
Bona is widely popular. the Basic Coatings products are possibly geared for commercial which is why we went with it. the downside to that is it might be priced commercial as well, i think it was like $100 a gallon. just as easy to use, even with the cross link.
daveinbedstuy | 6 years ago
I just refinished floors here in Philly. Floors that had been sanded and refinished about 20 years ago. Screened and three coats of satin poly. They look great but they were dark stained to begin with which doesn’t show this sort of wear. I have a maple floor in another house with a light stain and I have the same issues. I think it’s time for a screening of that one and poly. I have used Rejuvenate on them and it is a good, but temporary and fleeting fix.
cate | 6 years ago
Citykitty, it was 10 years ago so I am not sure, but if memory serves, it was Bona.
stevecym | 6 years ago
urbanded, these oil finishes seem to come under names like osmo (?) and rubio mono coat. no building and yes, falls in that category. not sure if they come in white so i may be wrong to have mentioned them. i have never used them but have seen the results and they are appealing and no yellowing. so yes, that begs the question, can oil finish go over these??? but keep in mind people who use them do not want build.
another thing we have been told lately (by the sellers of water base finish) is that water base can be applied over old (very old) oil. i have not done it yet. but i wonder if water base finish can be applied over these other oils? i mean if they have dried for years? it is not something i would attempt without calling both the manufacturer of the oil and the manufacturer of the water base finish.
hkapstein | 6 years ago
The only thing I would have done differently in cate’s method is to use gloss for the undercoats. The deglossing agent is considered to reduce the strength of the finish, and the the top coat generally determines the sheen. If you put a coat of gloss poly over 3 coats of satin, it will look very glossy, and the reverse is also true.
I’m not sure about this new oil option. Is it different than a normal oil finish? I’ll have to check this out but if there’s no film building finish it sounds like it falls in that category. It might be interesting to put an oil based varnish over an oil finish. The UV is relatively new option that I think would compare favorably to other methods.