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Light color stain for red oak?? Help!

9 years ago
Hello! We had water damage from a frozen pipe a few months ago and FINALLY getting it all back together (with some changes). Our floors are hand scraped red oak and they were a dark color. Since they all have to be sanded down anyway, we want to do a lighter stain but having trouble finding a good color. Our floor guy uses Minwax. I actually love the light color now except that it has a ton of pink in it and it's of course pretty raw looking. Any suggestions for light stain colors?? My plan is to do 2/3 Weathered Oak and 1/3 Classic Gray (to get rid of the yellow tones) but would really prefer to find the light color I have in mind! Thank you!!
Featured Answer
  • 9 years ago
    Thank you! I haven't tried Pickled Oak but will give that a whirl on a sample piece. My floor guy did a couple samples. One on far right is Weathered Oak with Classic Gray, to the left is just Weathered Oak and then on a board that I bought but it's not handscraped I tried Driftwood.

    Comments (27)

    • PRO
      9 years ago
      Pickled Oak and/or Gray. The oak has too much gold/yellow for the cooler tones of the white and gray already in the kitchen.
    • 9 years ago
      Best to do large test areas on your floor. Then repost photos.

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    • 9 years ago

      You may have to have your flooring guy do a custom mix for you, but whatever you do first do a test area. I see you have re-used some of the old flooring, that may make a difference in color to that area. Hopefully one of the flooring experts will come along and give advice. There should be other options than Minwax I would think.

    • 9 years ago
      These are the same pieces next to the white (BM Simply White) and gray (BM Gray Owl) in our house. From left to right, Driftwood, Weathered Oak, Weathered Oak plus Classic Gray.
    • 9 years ago

      I like the Classic gray as it still shows some wood tones vs. flat gray.

    • PRO
      9 years ago
      The weathered oak and classic gray look nice with your wall color. If you still want to go even lighter, try 3/4 pickled oak and 1/4 classic gray. This should cover the natural pink in the red oak wood flooring, and provide an even lighter color tone you are wanting. Once a polyurethane finish is put on top of the stain, the shine will also cause the floor to appear lighter.
      Shannon S thanked SewCreative
    • 9 years ago

      Thank you! Floor guy comes tomorrow so I'm going to have him do a sample of Pickled Oak and Classic Gray on the hand scraped piece. I tried it on a raw piece and it looked great.

    • 9 years ago
      I'm so disappointed. I used the pickled oak/classic gray combination and loved it!! But floor guy tried it on the new and old wood (sanded down) and they take the stain so differently. We're going to try again tomorrow when he handscrapes the wood. Ugh, very bummed right now! Does anyone have any suggestions (besides doing a dark color)? Thank you!!
    • 9 years ago

      I think I did forewarn you that may be a problem. Can you replace the old wood with new?

    • 9 years ago
      Yes, Angel 84312, I was thinking of your comment when we tried it! Might need to put new wood down but it's a large area. Hmmm....
    • 9 years ago

      So sorry, but better to put down new wood and have the color (or close to) that you want.

    • 9 years ago
      Thanks. The insurance company will take care of taking out old floors and putting new floors in thank goodness.
    • 9 years ago

      whew, that's good news. Just a bit of a delay, but worth it.

    • 7 years ago

      Any final photos of this flooring project?

    • 7 years ago
      The varied cupboard height looks ridiculous! Take them all up to the ceiling.
    • 7 years ago

      old post 2017 -

    • 7 years ago

      I’m curious how did everything come out? Do you have any pictures? I’m looking to stain weathered oak and classic gray to get similar to this color.

    • 7 years ago

      N Cho - Did you do the pinterest mix? I was just looking at the same and I am wondering how it came out?

    • 7 years ago

      I just tried the Pinterest mix on my white oak and it didn't look like the picture. See below!


    • 7 years ago

      @crawforde03 I’m so sorry we haven’t tried it yet. White oak will be installed next week. What did you end up using for your stain?

    • 7 years ago

      Amander97 love to see other samples if you have any more of the greige color stain wood?

    • 7 years ago
      last modified: 7 years ago

      I can't upload pics to Houzz. I have a ton of pics of all the different stains we did on our white oak to try to get this look. If you PM me with your email, I can send them to you. We ended up doing 1 coat of Bona Nordic Seal and 2 coats of Bona Mega Clear HD. It looks awesome. Wish I could upload all the pics!

    • 6 years ago

      Professionals don’t use MinWax.

    • 4 years ago

      Help! We have red oak flooring the first layer of weathered oak just went down and it pulled way more red than the sample we tested! Can you layer over top of it for the next round of stain? Has anyone tried this and done 50/50 country white and weathered oak over top? Or any suggestions!?!? Help!!!

    • 4 years ago

      Curious- we’re you able to solve for this? Currently debating colors for our own red oak floor and am worried about red pulling.

    • 4 years ago

      (My comment is meant for Courtney East)

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