Staining Hardwood Floors -
Obtaining Room Harmony

Furniture changes a lot more often around a room than hardwood floor and this raises a design problem: at one point, your hardwood floor might match perfectly with the other furniture pieces in the house, but once you change them your floor’s color won’t be compatible with the type of wood your new furniture is carved in.

Staining is part of the refinishing process and it’s most commonly (and most effectively) done in between buffing and finishing the floor. Oftentimes, it’s not necessarily used to change the tint of the floors, but rather to enforce their color, which loses its resonance over time.

Stains penetrate each type of wood differently, so for example open grained woods such as walnut, oak, pecan or ash will be stained more effectively than closed grain woods such as maple or birch. That’s why knowing the type of wood you have before actually starting to stain the hardwood floor is important.

 
Staining requires a clear and clean surface before being applied, so if you just sanded and buffed the floor, take some extra time and effort to get it as clean as possible. 

Otherwise, you might have different stain colors for hardwood flooring planks in the same room, as some of the stains will get sucked in by debris and will obviously not color the actual planks with the same efficiency.

Stuff You’ll Need for Staining Hardwood Floors

• wood stain
• knee pads
• a clean rag

How to Choose the Right Wood Stain

There are several types and brands of wood stains out there and the one you get should be determined by what you want to do with it and by what type of floor you have. 

If you simply want to improve the current color of your floor and make it more saturated, you can use pigmented penetrating sealer stains, which do not obscure the natural wood grain of your floor. 

Oil based pigmented stains are amongst the best on the market and they’re commonly used when trying to change the color of the floor. They accentuate the grain pattern of the floor but they also shorten the life of the wood if applied excessively.

How to Apply Hardwood Floor Staining

1. First of all, make sure the floor is clean.


2. The room should be well ventilated, since the fumes caused by the stains are harmful if the gather up (open a window or turn on the ventilation in your house to avoid this).


3. Get your kneepads on, because you don’t want to get stain solution on your clothes or bare skin.


4. After applying each stain portion, wipe off the excess with a clean rag. Otherwise, the drying time will be increased heavily.


5. After finishing the staining process, leave the floor to dry out over night. In some cases, if you used excess stain, if the ventilation in your house is poor and there’s no air flow around the room or if the temperatures are too cool, drying the stains could take longer.
   
   

• Got a tip for staining?
• Got a brand of stain you recommend?

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I have spent several years doing faux finish for show homes. One project was especially interesting. This home was built in the 20s and the floors badly ...