The Perfect Stain to Cut the Yellow/Orange from Hardwoods…
Good Afternoon! Coming to y’all with a much promised hardwood flooring stain post! I have had sooooo many questions about our hardwood floor stain over the years and although I did blog it HERE, I definitely did not do the best job explaining it. Not to mention the fact that the stain I needed either didn’t exist eight years ago or I just never found it because just as I always do with paint colors, I made up my own concoction!
So here’s the problem… and now a much easier solution! The “problem” is that I LOOOOOVED the look of our 1908 hardwoods (and the early 1900’s hardwoods at our historic flip home) once they were all sanded down but then just a simple clear stain turned them ORANGE!
Clear Stain…
So for our home eight years ago now, I mixed up a whitewash that would basically just cut the orange leaving them looking natural…
And they turned out STUNNING!!!
Then a couple of weeks ago it came time to do the very same thing for our historic renovation with it’s original hardwoods. Although these floors are not in as good shape as our hardwoods, they are definitely worth keeping! We always try to keep and restore as much as we can with historic homes. Even with imperfections, they have so much charm!
But of course once again, although these floors are just naturally warmer in color, they went even darker and even warmer with clear stain (top left)…
But this time we gave this a try and it was PERFECT!!!
Although like I said, these hardwoods are not in the best shape, they turned out really pretty with CHARACTER that I love…
XOXO, Brittany Palazzo
Nancy Thompson says
so this stain left it pretty much natural without turning the wood orange?
Brittany Hayes says
Yes, exactly! It’s crazy how much yellow/orange the clear stain brought out in it!
Darla says
We have dark brown engineered hardwood floors… not really sure what that means. But can I sand this kind of flooring for a lighter color.
Brittany Hayes says
Yes, you should be able to! Usually engineered flooring can be sanded, it just isn’t as thick and can’t be done quite as much as regular hardwoods.
Allie says
Did you do a clear stain on top of the whitewash?
How long before these floors need a touch up?
Looks beautiful!
Renee says
The floors in this post that you achieved to refinish are gorgeous! Is the first example where you whitewashed to cut down the orange on pine floors? Is the second example where you used the Bona Fast Dry Stain in White on maple floors?
USVintage Wood says
Thank you for sharing this. I am happy to see the outcome.