Matching hardwood floors with existing
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
| We have hardwood throughout the first floor and want to have hardwood installed in our family room, which currently has carpet on top of plywood. We've gotten two estimates. One guy said there is no way he can do it without refinishing all of the floors on the first level, that it will not match. Another guy said no problem, he can match them. Which is being realistic? I don't want to hire the second guy and end up with some awful looking job; nor do I want to pay for unnecessary work. |
Anonymous
| The guy can definitely match them. We had new hardwoods in a very dark brown put down in part of our house, the rest of the existing hardwoods within the house were stained to match. It wasn't rocket science. |
Anonymous
Yes but you stained all the old floors to match the new ones . op wants to match existing floors to new ones exactly without restaining the original ones there. That is more difficult to get exactly the right shade since floors can change colors depending on the light exposure and other factors. (I had a similar situation and the floors just don't match exactly but we didn't want to pay to restain floors that were in good condition. |
Anonymous
| I think the OP is asking whether the existing hardwoods must be refinished in order to match the new ones. I always thought that was the case. |
Anonymous
| A good floor guy can match them. We had the tile floor in our kitchen replaced with wood and it is indistinguishable from the floors on the rest of the first floor (which were not refinished). |
Anonymous
+1. We did exactly this as well. |
Anonymous
Ok dummy I'll explain it to you -you can get unfinished hardwoods put in and match them to the existing hardwoods with stain. OK? Same deal, in reverse. I can't believe you didn't work that one out. Not harder at all -just a case of mixing the stains until you get the perfect match, which is what we did. |
Anonymous
What are you 3 years old, calling people dummy? I'm not the PP but marching unfinished hardwoods to get the 'perfect match' is not that easy. There's a bunch of articles on home improvement sites about staining hardwoods correctly and the difficulties of matching. But I would not expect someone who calls people dummy to have read them. |
Anonymous
| If you have stained floors this might work. We have natural maple floors (that is, they have a poly finish but no stain) that had darkened slightly with age and when we had to get one section replaced because of water damage, the whole thing had to be sanded and refinished. |
Anonymous
I have the same issue and was told the same thing. It make plenty sense to me that it would be a hard match |
Anonymous
|
Another issue is the transition between old and new. This week we are installs new HW in the kitchen and the original planks from the 1940s oak are a different width. We will put in a transition (two pieces running perpendicular to the existing and soon to be installed floors) to act as the transition.
He hasn't mentioned the HW being different colors and we aren't redoing the whole first floor - but we just purchased the house and the sellers did the floors in the spring. |
Anonymous
| Re sanding may match, but it may not be exact. I have a very well known wood guy and literally did this last week. Replaced kitchen floors, sanded and stained then new floor and the remaining floors in the house. The match is close, but not exact. My old floors are 90 years old, wood takes stains differently when it is that old. Same exact type of wood too. |