Old preexisting floors are not the best canvas to sand and refinish in a gray stain.
Classic gray stain on red oak floors.
Dan s floor store was contracted to refinish the 1 1 2 wide solid old red oak plank floors in this circa 1950 home in the ortega neighborhood of jacksonville florida.
Otherwise you ll have pink mixed in.
Older floors typically have spacing nail and pin holes discoloration etc.
Stain can turn out blotchy on maple floors as these are close pored species this blotchiness occurs with all stain colors.
Gray stained floors tend to turn out best on white oak flooring.
If you do a stain you don t need a sealer as the stain is the sealer.
Tips for choosing red oak floor stains.
So this is just two coats of minwax classic grey on red oak hardwood floor.
Dark walnut 2716.
Classic gray tends to be slightly blotchy so make sure to use pre conditioner with this stain color.
This classic gray stain creates the perfect weathered look without over saturating with too much gray.
The dark gray will help hide and drown out the red tones.
The alcohol washed out the lines in the wood which made it more grey and we wanted more dimensions.
Every single piece of wood took on a gray hue including the red oak.
Ginger if you have red oak and want to do some form of gray you will either need to bleach the floors first or choose a darker gray.
Which also means the wood grains still show through the stain color.
We are considering a mix of weathered oak and mixed with gray stain which i found scouring the net.
For reference we decided not to add alcohol to minwax classic grey.
Be careful with the wood species.
So before i get into the oak stain colors and results i thought it would be helpful to provide a few tips on choosing a hardwood floor stain.
Best to stain gray on a brand new installed floor.
We are refinishing existing 2 1 4 red oak floors that are currently a darker stain and completely replacing the floors in some rooms so we have to stick with red oak.
For diy on coffee table click here.
As part of the refinishing process our client described the look they wanted and we recommended adding a grey stain to the red oak planks during our refinishing process.