Restore pine floors or install new oak ones? Don't trust my flooring guy.

I’d but some pine planks from your local H Depot type place then experiment with different dyes and stains until I got what I wanted

davo1

in Renovation 11 years and 8 months ago

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cate | 11 years and 9 months ago

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We removed laminate and refinished about 2700 sq feet of soft pine subflooring, including staining and four coats water-based poly, as well as sanding the staircase by hand, for about $4,800 ($300 of which was the cost of hiring the dumpster to dispose of the laminate). The soft pine subfloor is not a hardwood, so best to avoid dragging furniture across its surface, slamming things down onto it or walking around in spike heels. So far this has not been a problem. Also our subfloor has all kinds of damage and nails showing, none of which seems to detract from its beauty. Everyone remarks on how beautiful the floors are. It is extremely noisy — that is the one thing a new floor would probably help — might have to replace some joists to correct that too.

cate | 11 years and 9 months ago

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Also re how to refinish, I suggest you stick with four coats of satin water based poly. Anything shinier will make the floors vary in tone. We stained ours (test first) and it came out lovely and even with a walnut tone. (Think we used Minwax Golden Oak.) You definitely need someone experienced with floors to do pine or stains. Ours treated with a sealer first to make the floors take the stain more evenly.

pocketdora | 11 years and 9 months ago

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Thank you all so much, this is incredibly helpful. Slopette, I think your floors look gorgeous. If ours end up looking like that we’ll be delighted. By the way the verdict that they are heart pine came from the current people we are using, who took a plank away to test it. Very useful conversation about the staining. We have a lot of nice woodwork and had been thinking of staining the floor the same color, but perhaps natural is wiser. We’ll see what advice we get: I’m seeing two new guys today – both are people mentioned in these comments. I will keep you posted.

slopefarm | 11 years and 9 months ago

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Fine to get advice, but you should really test a few finishes and see what looks good. It’s not just what kind of tree the floors came from, but what they have been exposed to over the last century — how much moisture, sanding, abuse, etc., that will affect the color.

brokelin | 11 years and 9 months ago

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Completely aside from the issue of how evenly the boards will take stain, do think hard about staining your floors the color of your woodwork…it strikes me as being all too much of the same brown (or red, depending on your woodwork color) when the floors and the woodwork are the same color. I think you may want some contrast. I had pine subfloors that were finished without stain in my last place, and I loved them. (Woodwork there had been painted, so I can’t comment on the contrast there, but did have medium brown oak trim with unstained antique yellowed old oak parquet in the place before that, and I liked the contrast between floor and woodwork a lot.) My pine floors weren’t hard pine, they dented whenever I dropped something, but they were lovely…everybody remarked on them when they walked in. I do belive this was largely because of the lack of stain…they had that yellowed look, also variegated with much darker, more reddish patches…but I think pine floors look best with no stain, they have a luminous look to them. I don’t believe they were finished with poly – the finish didn’t flake or peel or wear like poly, which led me to believe it was one of the more penetrating floor finishes, and I liked it a lot better than I ever liked poly.

pocketdora | 11 years and 9 months ago

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Hmmm. Slopette, did you stain your floors or is that natural? And did you use an oil finish? I’d be more than happy with a mixture of tones. I could be fine with the floors a different color than the woodwork, but the only thing I really don’t want is very pale floors.

bkk | 11 years and 9 months ago

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Slopette’s looks like a satin finish with no stain. Hard to tell oil or water based from the pic. I did satin waterbased polyurethane (BONA Traffic) with no stain and I am very happy with the results. The floors were done two years ago and no signs of wearing (an issue with the older waterbased, supposedly not with the newer versions). If you are concerned with having pale floors you might want to consider oil-based as it has a more amber color and will become turn more amber over time. The waterbased on the other hand is a lighter color and more closely resembles the color of the wood before the poly is applied. For me I wanted the lighter look (not sure if this if this would classify as pale for you).

slopette | 11 years and 9 months ago

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Natural, water based satin finish.

slopefarm | 11 years and 9 months ago

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Slopette’s variegation looks strange to me, as if the different boards are different types and ages of wood. More typically, one would expect the variegation to follow the grain and grain lines and be more gradual — areas near knots and nails darker, areas that absorbed mroe water darker, etc. I’ve never saeen an old pine floor that looks like Slopette’s picture. ALl the more reason to do some testing on your floors. As the car ads say, “your mileage may vary.”

NeoGrec | 11 years and 9 months ago

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Sorry to hear about your problems — yup, your flooring contractor is ripping you off. Walk away. Just wanted to say that lifting the pine sub-floors and installing plywood underneath creates a very stable, quiet floor with no movement that will wear better over the long term.

pocketdora | 11 years and 9 months ago

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UPDATE: We fired the first company, chose another, and the show is finally back on the road. Very happy so far with our new guy (I might name names in a later post, depending on how everything pans out), who within half an hour of starting had sanded a test patch of floor and talked me through four finishing options. I am in a bit of a quandary since despite what several people on this forum have said about the dangers of going dark and the beauty of natural pine, we just like the dark look better. We found a photo of another house that has door frames and baseboards exactly the same color and style as ours, and floors that had been finished dark (and rather unfashionably shiny). We’d like ours to look like that. Based on the attached picture, do any of you have any further advice for us? I think the Special Walnut (in semi-gloss, I guess, rather than the matt one on our floor now) would be quite close, but my husband is worried it might be too red. Thanks for your help!