Nordicseal will not bond to Classicseall. You need to bring it down to raw wood. They should have been more transparent with their advise. It sounds like they want to get out of there.

@G & S Floor Service thank you. The contractor has been very unpleasant from the beginning. Any other solutions ... like maybe just redoing the red oak plank on the landing or the entire landing? Do you think the nordic on red oak will look much better and almost match the landing? Is it worth re doing For $700-800 (His quote). Any good way to approach him and try to talk the price down? Like I said, I felt like he’s been burned before and didn‘t want to offer any advice and just threw his hands yo defensively when I asked for his professional opinion. I’m not a surgeon, so Imm not going to tell a surgeon how to do surgery. I also asked him to tell me if it looked crazy, which it does.

Hmm guess it still looks a little orange to me, but not as orange as classic seal. We are just going to fix the plank of red oak on the landing and see if it’s worth redoing the whole staircase. Maybe darker stairs will be ok?

Another pic

we will be refinishing downstairs to look like landing (nordicseal) in a few months. Upstairs has 4inch Whiteoak planks with nordicseal

If, you plan to do the downstairs in Nordicseal. Have him credit you for any unfinished work. And address the staircase then.