We are putting on a 400 SF Greatroom addition with hardwood flooring. The present house has 500 SF of red oak flooring that needs to be darkened and refinished. There is a 4′ wide entrance that will meet old and new areas. I am trying to decide if I should use prefinished bruce 15 yr. flooring $3.90sf at Home depot in new area and try to stain match the old area when it gets refinished, or should I use unfinised $2.50 SF in the new area and stain and finish both areas togather.
Price is not the greatest concern. I am doing the work my self and most concern is the labor to finish the new 400 sf. Also concerned the the factory bruce finish should hold up better and trying to stain match the old with the new.
Thank you for any thoughts or ideas!
Replies
It is very difficult to match the stain - determining color, intensity, color of existing raw wood floor, etc. And you won't know if you got it until 2 coats of finish are on (sealer + one coat). Then you will have to contend with the boards/ strips at the old and new joint/ seam. They probably won't be at the same height due to wood removed during refininshing and if you aren't 100% accurate you either won't scrape up all the old finish or - more likely - you'll injure the prefinished wood.
I understand it's 400 sqft of more sanding plus sanding the edges (worst part) but it will look much better. Everything will be unified.
In addition to Frankie's thought about the match, even if you got a match, a field finished floor "looks" different than a pre-finished floor. When a floor is field finished, the entire floor is sanded to the same level, so you'll see light reflected evenly across the entire span. On pre-finished, each board is its own facet and will reflect light in a slightly different way from the next board. When the whole floor is pre-finished it's not noticable, but I think next to the field finished floor, you'll be scratching your head saying....... there's something different about that floor and I can't figure out what......
As a side note.... I did unfinished in my last house and as I was laying the planks in the middle of the living room floor, I accidentally set a spinnining router down in the middle of a part I had already done. Since it wasn't finished yet, it was repairable. I just helped a friend do some prefinished and I was a nervous wreck. Always making sure there wasn't a nail underfoot that could make a gouge or accidentally dropping the big hammer on a part the was already done.... Too much anxiety for me.
I installed about 2000 square feet of the prefinished last year. If you were not trying to match an existing floor I would recommend it.
The finish on the floor is very tough, the owners have been very happy with how durable the finish is. They have a large dog and the floors still look new.
The only thing I do not like is the micro-bevel that you get with the pre-finshed. This is a little v groove between the pieces that allows the finish to look uniform when layed down. You do not get that flat look in between pieces.
junckers hardwood flooring has the flat top look you want
You mean prefinished with a flat top look? Is it really flat top or just flat top look? How do they deal with the over wood though?
Tom
Yea you'll notice the difference in color unless you stain everthing at once. Its all depends on what you can live with.
At Darkworks Customer satisfaction Job One..Yea yea were all over it , I got my best guys on it.........
http://www.cpninc.com/junckershardwood/
I would love to know more about the pre- finished flooring you have put down. First, was any of it hardwood? Specifically, not the 5/16" floating systems but it's the 9/16" nail- down bamboo I'm wondering about. How did the finish hold up? Installation problems in older homes with 'bumps' in floor?