When we saw this house, I absolutely knew that we had to change the hardwood floors. There was no question about it. On the upper level is all hardwood, but it’s stained yellow/orange. It looks dated and was in ROUGH shape.
When I first started thinking of changing the floors, I considered 3 options
- Refinish and re-stain the existing floor
- Lay LVP on top of the floors
- Rip out the floor and install new engineered hardwood
Why I chose to re-stain my old hardwood floor
When I asked my Instagram audience, I got hundreds of messages that I should re-stain the hardwood floor. People are passionate about hardwood flooring because:
1- Hardwood floors feel so good under your feet. There is a richness that you can only feel, not describe
2- It would be a waste of natural resources to rip out the floor. As a DIYer and woodworker, I try to salvage materials and produce as little waste as possible
3- Natural hardwood floors can be re-stained to look fabulous!
4- It is the most cost effective solution. It would be a similar price to lay LVP on top of the existing wood.
5- Re-finishing floors takes longer than laying down new floors. But I knew this was feasible for us because we have a basement that we can sleep in. The basement also has a bathroom with a shower. If we didn’t have this space, we might have moved to my mom’s house but it would be a deciding factor.
Why I chose to hire professionals instead of DIYing my floors
As someone who is pretty experienced with DIY, I went to YouTube and watched several videos on how to re-stain floor. I also read reddit threads to understand challenges. A lot of people agree that it is a difficult task to DIY. Here are some reason’s why I opted not to
- I have 3 kids and we have to move all of our belongings and sleep down in our basement while the floor is re-finished. This meant that my home would be upside down. I wanted this task done as quickly as possible. I am a slow DIYer. I balance mom life, my business and my projects. I knew a task that would take professionals a week would take me MUCH longer
- I don’t think I can get a professional finish. This is the type of project I want to have done ONCE only. I read on several reddit threads that sanding the floors was the easy part. The hard part was getting a perfect finishing on the stain. Several people had problems with the stain curing, bubbling or being streaky.
- Re-staining floors is a back breaking job. The machines that are required are heavy. The professional company we hired required 2-3 men to take the machines upstairs. Everyday, I would watch them work and it was hard. Every step required a lot of physical labor.
What I looked for when meeting flooring companies
Picking the right contractor is such a daunting task. You’re trusting your home to someone who could make or break it. I met with 2 different contractors. Both were highly recommended by someone I personally knew.
Each company had a different way to go about the project. The project cost was almost the same, but here’s what differentiated the company I chose
Moving furniture and belongings
They would remove all the furniture upstairs and move it back after the project. If you’re living in your home, you may have accumulated a lot of furniture and personal belongings. We don’t have a lot of furniture yet, but each bedroom has a bed, nightstands and desk, so this would be significant effort on our end. We simply had to box up our belongings.
The other company said we would have to move everything ourselves. I think we’d have to hire movers.
They put as much furniture in the bathrooms. Then, with the remaining furniture, we tried to fit as much as we could in the living room, and the remaining in the garage.
Baseboard installation
They would remove the baseboards and re-install them. If any broke in the process, they would absorb the cost. They would not be painting the baseboards.
The other company would be removing the baseboards, but would not be re-installing them and told us most would break. So they wouldn’t even be careful enough for us to re-install them. That is a huge cost and effort to get new baseboards, cut and install them.
How much did refinishing my floors cost?
When I called both flooring companies, both came to my home to give me an estimate. It is SO important to get an in-home estimate. The work your floors require will impact the cost. They will look at factors such as the condition of the original floors, the baseboards, the color your floors are and what you want to change it to, the size of the home and more.
Both were approximately the same cost. In my area, flooring costs about $4.50- $6 sq foot. But, the company I hired would remove the furniture and re-install the baseboards, which would help us save money when compared to the other company.
Also understand the payment structure. I didn’t feel comfortable paying upfront. Instead, I paid 40% when they purchased the stain, and the remaining when it was complete.
What was the process of re-finishing the floors like?
Here’s some tips to help you understand the process of refinishing your floors
Prepare your home and pack up!
A few days before, we packed all the small items in boxes. We rolled up the rugs, moved lamps, etc. All the clothes that were hanging in our closets got dumped in the bath tubs. This seemed easiest. We packed clothes and personal care items in a carry-on for each person as the process takes about 7 days.
We set up our temporary space in the basement and the kids were thrilled to have a family sleeper. I took all the items we’d be using to the basement. We also set up the pull out couch and sleeping bags for our 2 sons.
The sanding process
I suggest having the company arrive on the first day around 10am. My kids were at school and I had time in the morning to take all of our bedding, pillows, etc down to the basement. We also disassembled my daughter’s crib and took it to the basement. I knew our kids sleep would be disrupted, but I didn’t want my daughter to regress and sleep in bed with us.
They brought their machines and started to remove the baseboards. I was so impressed with their attention to detail. They labelled each baseboard and created bundles for each room. They were stored in the garage. They also removed all the doors, sliding closet doors, and floor strips.
Sanding took them 4 days. Granted, our house is a bit bigger, so it may take more or less time based on the size of your home. They started with more gritty sand paper and worked their way to finer sand paper. It was noisy. My husband who works from home couldn’t even work in the basement. The house also smelled like burnt wood from the sanding.
I was really surprised as how little dust there was at the end of each day and in other parts of our home. They kept the vacuums constantly running and did a thorough clean up every days. The dust did not travel downstairs, even when they sanded the hallway.
Filling all the gaps in the floor
If I had to estimate, our floor is at least 15 years old, maybe even original to the home. The floor has shifted and there are dents and dings in the floor. One unexpected surprise was that they filled the entire surface of the floor. It evened our the color tone too. It looks incredible, it looked new!
Learning that we have Red Oak Floors
The floor looked really great once we saw the natural wood. I was SO happy with my decision but I couldn’t understand why the wood floor was pink? It turns out we have red oak floors which are very common in 90’s and early 2000’s homes. This would turn out to be an issue when picking stain.
The difficulty of selecting a stain
Selecting a stain was the hardest part of the process. At first, they put a few natural stains but the pink tone of the red oak floor came through too strongly. Then they applied darker stains, but I knew they were too dark. I wanted a mid-tone wood. I have a LVP sample that I am trying to match to when I re-do my main level flooring. None of them were close.
I wanted a mid-tone wood because I feel like it will have the most longevity and is the most classic. Although light wood is trendy right now, I feel like it will look very dated in 5 years. I never want to have to refinish my floors again.
Now I had 5 stain colors to choose from, but none were what I liked. When I brought this up the flooring owner, he said there was a miscommunication because he thought I wanted a light natural tone. I was also very worried that we went through this entire process and I would end up with… PINK FLOORS!?
He said he usually doesn’t get a lot of people refinishing floors and it’s more common for people to lay down new engineered wood because they knew exactly what color they would get. He suggested a product called Bona White Out which bleaches the red oak. The downside of using it is that it takes an additional 3 days and costs about $800 for the product. Plus, he could not guarantee the result. I was struggling with the state of my house being upside down, and wanted to wrap this up ASAP. And honestly, if I knew I had red oak floors from the beginning, I probably would have also opted for new floors.
But here I was, we’ve already been living in our basement for 5 days and have sunk thousands of dollars into the process. So I have to make it the best it can be. My saving grace was when my husband said “Whatever color you pick, just know that it will be better than the yellow floor we had before.” TRUE
I called a few local flooring companies to see if any had stain samples on red oak. I found a painting store that said they could definitely help solve my problems. I was so relieved when I walked in! They had stair treads in many different wood species with many different stain tones. I took the tread outside to the natural light and picked 2 samples to try. They also matched my LVP sample really closely! They are custom colors that the store formulates. If you’re local, check out Burlington Paint.
To make the staining process even more complicated, did you know that stain can look different based on the application method? So they sampled the floors with the technique of: applied heavy, wiped off after 2 minutes and wiped off immediately.
I let the stain samples sit for 24 hours. The colors changed and darkened. I watched the colors at all times, morning, afternoon, and at night with the overhead light on. I brought in pillows and rugs. Havin
g more sample colors made the decision harder, not easier!
I ended up picking a mid-tone darker color that hides the pink of the floors. It goes really nicely with the LVP sample that I am planning on using in the main level of my home
Applying the stain
When they applied the stain it smelled so bad. I wouldn’t recommend doing this project in the cold months because you’re going to want to open all the windows. I didn’t realize the stain combo I picked was oil based. The oil stain has a strong smell. At night we opened all the windows and slept in the basement with the space heater on. We weren’t able to use our kitchen at all. We ate all our meals in the basement too. The stain was applied, as well as a Bona white wash sealer. In between the floors were buffed too. I went with a matte finish which is more on trend for flooring.
The staining process took another 3 days, along with applying the baseboards and moving the furniture back in place. I am VERY happy with the result of the floor. It’s the perfect mid-tone that I wanted. If you’re local, I woud highly recommend Brar Stairs and Flooring. They showed up on time, listened to my concerns and the result is beautiful!
What’s even cooler is that the planks don’t look like 3” wide wood planks! After they applied the wood filler, you can’t really tell the width of the planks. I can’t believe this used to be ugly yellow flooring.
Post stain house keeping
It’s been 3 days since they’ve finished the staining and the house still smells like stain. We are still keeping our windows open. There was minimal dust. We have California shutters so I gave those a good wipe down. I also used my swiffer duster to dust the light fixtures, baseboards and walls. To my surprise, there wasn’t a lot of dust because they did a really good job cleaning it all out. Also, be sure to check the vents to make sure there isn’t dust lingering in there.
They advised us to clean the floors with water only for 1 month, no cleaner. We have 3 kids so we’re trying to be diligent with them taking big toys upstairs.
My Closing thoughts on getting my floors re-finished
In the end, staining my red oak floors was the right choice. Be sure to clearly communicate with your flooring professional of the color you’re looking to achieve. Show them pictures and flooring samples. I think I should have emailed him photos and showed him the floor samples. It might not be possible to get the look you desire from refinishing the floors, so new floors might be a better route.
Living through any renovation is hard. We were able to stay in our home because we have a shower in our basement bathroom. If we didn’t have that bathroom, I’d probably opt to stay at my mom’s house.
Laundering clothes was another challenge since our laundry machine was upstairs. I threw in a load of laundry late at night after the crew left, or early in the morning. I had to work around their schedule, but with 3 kids, we could not survive a week without laundry!
After seeing all the heavy and fancy machines that were used throughout this process, it was evident that many DIY tutorials don’t include many of the steps that professionals do. I am so glad I didn’t DIY this project! You can save money on a lot of different aspects of your home, but re-staining floors should be left to a professional.
I am so excited to create built-ins in my kids rooms, and start making my home more ME. These mid-tone floors are the perfect backdrop for my DIYs. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments below, or message me on instagram.
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