Staining hardwood floors

Between hardwood floors and furniture pieces, the latter tend to be changed much more often. If you've had hardwood floors for a while, you know firsthand the design or aesthetic problems that come up whenever you change your furniture pieces. At one time, your furniture and hardwood floor matched visually. However, when you put in new furniture without really thinking about the color of your hardwood floor, that's when compatibility issues arise.

There is really no need to take out the entire hardwood floor just so it would match new furniture. Doing so is time-consuming and can get rather expensive, particularly if you tend to change or add new furniture pieces often. Staining is the better option. It's less costly to staining hardwood floors than to install completely new hardwood flooring.

Staining is actually one aspect of the hardwood refinishing process. To effectively stain hardwood floors, it should be done between buffing the floor and applying the finish. Staining is usually done not with the intention of changing the color of floors, but with the intention of enforcing their color. In this regard, staining hardwood floors is useful for bringing back a floor's color, which tends to gradually faded over time.

How stains penetrate depends on the type of woods. For instance, staining is much more effective on floors made from open-grained woods like ash, oak, pecan or walnut because stain colors for hardwood flooring of these types tend to penetrate deeper. Hardwood floors made from closed-grain woods like birch or maple tend to not stain as well. Thus, before you start a hardwood floor staining project, make sure you know the wood type of your floor so you can choose the right stain to use.