Hello AT,
I have light maple hardwood floors. I want to turn them chocolate brown. I have heard that they will turn out blotchy if the contractor doesn't know what they are doing and that the floors should actually be dyed, then stained for the best result. Is that all true? What other insight can you give me? Finally, is there a contractor who can be recommended who works in Brooklyn?
Thanks for any help, Bob
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Dear Bob,
We are actually working with a client who has maple floors right now and it is true that the grain of the wood makes even staining difficult because it does not absorb evenly or well.
The best approach is - as you said - to dye them with an analyne dye and then stain them. While the dye can be a bit tricky as some have alchohol mixtures and dry quickly the procedure is not unlike staining your floor twice. First you lay down the dye and then you lay down the stain AFTER the dye has fully dried.
On the floor we are working on now we have a beautiful color occuring with Van Dyke Brown dye and Coffee Bean stain.
We recommend testing a small portion of your floor first as the final color that you get will be a combination of the dye and the stain AND the polyurethane sheen on top (you don't need to poly if you feel comfortable with the color after staining, but you should know that it will illuminate the colors more and generally make it nicer).
Anyone else??
Verazanno Flooring highly recommended.
Frankly chocolate and dark brown floors are a bit of a fad. This was all the rage in the late 70's too (yes I'm an old design queen). The dark brown is hard to maintain, shows all dust and dirt more than a light wood (you'll need to dust it most every day) and is not easily reversable short of replacing it. Be sure you will love it for years and years to come.
I'm with JC - it's a trend, I love it too, but given that it's a huge and irreversible undertaking, really be sure that you love it and are ready to commit.
I ended up going with Flor carpet tiles in gerbil. It has satisfied my craving for dark brown floors... for now.
I just did this to my oak floors and they're beautiful. The contractor used a pre-stain, then stain, then 3 coats of water-based polyurethane. The pre-stain and water based (instead of oil-based) poly cost extra but it was worth it. We chose a satin finish which hides imperfections.
The contractor sanded the whole apartment, then on a patch of floor he painted a stripe of pre-stain. Then he showed me samples of stain on the floor so I could see them with and without the pre-stain. It seems like it opens up the grain and lets more color get absorbed, so the grain is less contrast-y. Overall, it came out darker than I expected and I would guess that's because the pre-stain sat longer for the actual process than for the sample. I'm in Chicago so I can't refer you to anyone but I hope this helps!
Best to leave floor the original colour. A pale floor is the best in the world.
Whatever you do, don't use polyurethane. Unless, I don't know, maybe you really like highly toxic petroleum-based substances. I have become a big fan of Osmo hardoil wax, a German-made floor coating approved by the EU for use on things like salad bowls and childrens' toys. I did my own apartment with it (which has maple floors) and just did the floors of a friend's apartment with it last month (which was oak). Didn't stain at all.
The light tone of the wood from my maple floors makes the place look bigger, which is more than half the battle when living in an apartment in New York, when all is said and done, ain't it?
I second the Verrazzano flooring recommendation. They did a BEAUTIFUL job on our floor, right on schedule. They did poly, and the smell was bad, but it disapated (sp?) quite quickly.
ever heard of water based polyurethane?!
I disagree about dark floors being a "trend" - my parent's house has original 1934 dark chocolate wide plank oak floors throughout the main floor of the house (livingroom, dining room, foyer, etc.) 70+ years later they still look great. It is true that dust, pet hair, etc, shows up on them much more than on the lighter colored wood floors in my house, but my parents got one of those cordless vacuum deals which makes it really easy and fast to suck all that stuff up.
I would REALLY recommend against polyurthane on top of the floors though. My mom put a new poly-urathaned wood floor into one bedroom in her house about 8 years ago (the only room where there were no original wood floors) and regrets it every day. It has scratched really easily and badly, and took some water damage from a leak in a bathroom above the room, which made the finish peel. At this point, 8 years later, it looks horrible and needs to be totally refinished, while the 70+ year old waxed floors still look great.
Yes, to keep them looking really good you have to wax them about once a year, but it's a job that can be done in a day, and you really don't need any experience to do it well.
Side question about poly-coating or sealing wooden floors. Does anyone know why you supposedly CANNOT poly-coat laminate wood flooring? I recentely installed some laminate in my house, and because the wood laminate on top of the particleboard is so thin, i think its vulnerable to being peeled up off the particleboard and chipping off (this has already happened in a few spots). Every apartment i've ever lived in in NY has had heavily poly'ed wood floors, and they seem to withstand anything (including roomates that let large amounts of water spill and sit on the floor until "air dried"). Any thoughts on how to similarly protect a laminate floor so i don't have to replace it again in 5 years?