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Hardwood floor refinish issue
wrote:
I have an older home, built in the 30's, that has hardwood flooring in
the living room. The floor was previously stained quite dark, and had
big scratches. Additionally, I removed a floor furnace and it left a
large hole in the floor along the wall by the entrance to the kitchen.
I hired a refinisher to come in and do the following: repair/fill the
hole then sand and coat the entire living room floor with polyeurethane
to natural color (that was his suggestion).
He did a great job except for one thing. The wood he used to repair
the hole where the furnace used to be is quite a bit lighter than the
existing wood. As in, the original wood is almost an orangish-red and
the new wood is nearly white.
He indicates that the new wood will yellow with age (or darken), but I
have my doubts. It seems to me that the new wood should more closely
match the existing wood RIGHT FROM DAY ONE. Am I off base here?
Should I pay him the balance for his work, or should I demand that he
replace the new lighter wood with something closer in color? Thanks!
You've run into one of the compromises that frequently are encountered
in remodeling and refinishing work. If you have him stain the wood to
match the existing, and it does in fact darken with age, it will look
worse as time goes by instead of better. Many woods do darken with
exposure to sunlight, but you didn't mention what hardwood it is so
it's tough to tell.
It's also possible that the guy used a different species of the
hardwood - red vs. white oak is an example. They will never look the
same unless stained.
R
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