Replace or refinish hardwood floors

Question

I have the standard orangie color 2.25' oak hardwood flooring in my formal living and dining rooms. Unfortunately, over the years the wood has faded from the sun. Forward 15 years and its time to replace the carpeted areas with hardwood. Should I install unfinished flooring throughout (upper and lower levels), strip and stain everything the same color or tear out the old and start over with the darker, wider plank flooring that I love? The windows are covered with drapes and a UV protective coating.

Woodbridge Environmental Tiptophouse.com · Answer

It appears that you have a solid wood floor in place. A qualified flooring person could simply do a light sanding on the surface reapply a new stain and seal. You can if properly sanded refinish with a darker color if you like, but the darker the floor the more work it is to keep it clean. The type of floor you have is timeless, I would not remove this as the quality of this wood is very hard to get.

Woodbridge Environmental Tiptophouse.com · Answer

If you have these floors already down, you can purchase additional blonde oak that is the same size then sand and stain everything to match at the same time. Or simply do a few rooms at a time. 
Just remember you want at least three coats of sealer sanded between each coat and let dry if you can at least a week before you begin to put furniture back in. This will make the floor last for years with simple swifter and damp mop cleaning. 
What makes these floors so great is that the board lengths are difficult to get, most of this wood nowadays is much shorter lengths. A good quality flooring contractor can install the newer wood making it match that you will hardly even tell the floor is a different age then the other.

Carol · Answer

Before you strip or replace, get a small can of varnish and polyurethane for floors.  Try both on a patch of the floor at least 3-4boards wide and see if that brings the color back. If that doesn't work, strip the entire floor and stain a darker color( if the color doesn't match, apply a second coat to the sun bleached portion of the floor.  See if you ban find a floor finish with uv protection or put a polarizing film on the window.

Debbie Gartner · Answer

In order to fix the sun damage, the only way to do this is to fully sand and refinish the floors. You can NOT add stain on top, and while you can add poly on top (via a screen & recoat), it definitely will NOT solve this issue.

When you refinish the floors, you can easily change the color. The darker you go, the less noticeable the damage will be. It's also possible that even if you do natural, it won't show any damage...it just depends on how deep in the wood the damage is and you won't know that until it's sanded.

Regarding refinishing vs replacing, I would lean towards refinishing (unless you want to spend a lot more money). As a rule of thumb, it will probably cost you 6-10 times as much to replace vs to refinish.

Your wood is perfectly good...it just needs to be sanded and refinished. You could choose to add wider planks in the new area, or match (there generally is not a big cost difference). But, I would match with unfinished wood (not prefinished) so that everything will match up well. You may find this article handy - should you replace or refinish your hardwood floors?

Replace or refinish hardwood floors

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Replace or refinish hardwood floors

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