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oups.com...
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!

there are a lot of woods that age due to sunlight. if he made it match with
stain, then it would eventually look out of place when the rest of the floor
changed, and that area didn't. it would be hard, but not impossible, to find
wood to match the current color unless he can find some he could take out of
a closet, for example.