The Oak House Reno-{Old and New Floors & A Stain Dilemma}

What an amazing sight this was to see!  Although I didn't care for the original finish, these floors were in pretty great shape. And to see them with the old finish removed...wow!  I can hardly believe they are nearly 30 years old.  Our flooring contractor said they were probably select grade oak floors.  Whatever they are, they're beautiful.   I'm in love with just this step being done. 

Upstairs the flooring crew removed the old carpet and particle board underlayment and laid new oak floors to match the ones downstairs.  These were number one red oak, so they have a few more knots in the wood, but we think it adds a bit of character.  We went with a 3 1/4" wide plank upstairs, even though downstairs is a traditional 2 1/4" board.  In the one bedroom downstairs, we matched the wood width to the existing floors downstairs.

Oh those beautiful piles of wood!

It is so much work to have these put in.  Even if I knew how to do them, I don't know that I would have the time or energy to do this amount of flooring.  Plus the amount of sanding they do is impressive!  They have taken out bags and bags of sawdust.  The staining began on Friday, but I haven't been able to get to the house to see it.  We went with Minwax Provincial stain.  I didn't want to go as dark as our previous wood floors because they showed every bit of dust, but now I am second guessing the decision and hoping they aren't too light either.  I'm hoping we can walk thru in the morning after they have dried and see the stain color in the light of day.

{I started writing this post before the stain went down.  Even though we had about 8 different samples put down to choose from, I am still second guessing my stain choice.  The flooring is red oak which has red undertones.  So now with the stain on the ENTIRE floor, I am feeling like I see red undertones.  But I reeaaly don't like wood with red tones.  And although it may be slight, I don't want to have floors that I hate...grrr!  But I also saw how much work the gentleman in the photo put into sanding these floors down, like literally the whole house, and it seems a shame to say, "I don't like the color, please start over."  We were at our closing when the staining was done, and I didn't get a chance to see it go down.   What would you do knowing you've got to live with this decision for the next 20 plus years?  I ended up having car trouble to deal with and forgot to get a picture of the stain.  I will try to get one tomorrow.  Let me know what you think!}