Staining Your Minneapolis Hardwood Floors

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If you don’t like a traditional oil based finish look, or a more clear water-based finish on your Minneapolis hardwood floors, you might want to consider staining them. Sometimes people get confused about what the difference between staining and polyurethane is, well let’s clarify. Staining is when you add a specific color to the wood, you stain the wood. When you just add a oil based polyurethane to the floors it is just going to tint the wood a little bit. A few popular stain colors are Sedona Red, Dark Walnut, and Royal Mahogany. People usually stain for one of two reasons. First, they just like the color of the stain. They have a specific color in mind, they find the color and they say, “I want this on my floors.” For example, we did a job a few months ago for a good investor client who wanted Ebony stain on the kitchen floors in a very nice Edina home he was getting ready to sell. I was skeptical at first, but I said, “there your floors, I’ll do what you want.” In the end they turned out great. When he sold the house, the people who bought it liked the kitchen floor so much, they ended up having us back to stain and refinish the rest of the hardwood floors in the house Ebony. The other time people stain is to cover up urine stains or imperfections in the wood from water damage. Pet urine stains wood a black color and is difficult to get out completely. Water damage can cause a grayish discoloration in the wood, depending on how long the water was on the floors. We did a job a couple of weeks ago for a couple who just torn up their carpet and found a good amount of urine stains all over the place on their oak floors. We stained them a dark brown color and it concealed them well. In conclusion, staining is a good option if you don’t want a tradtional look, have a specific color in mind or have a lot of stains on your hardwood floors. Call your local floor professional and they can help you out.

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