Bleaching red oak hardwood floors

4 years ago

I searched the internet for pictures/more information on bleaching red oak floor, but couldn’t find a lot of information, so I decided to post some images of our progress.

We initially had our hardwood contractor apply two coats of bona nordic and two coats of bona HD on our hardwood floors, but hated how pink/mauve they looked. It didn't turn out at all like the sampled area because the sampled area was so small. There were other issue with the floor as well, so the contractor is redoing them and I want to make sure we get if right this time.

So far he has done two test areas. One with one coat of bleach and another with two coats of bleach. The bleach took out so much of the red/pink as you can see from the images. It’s hard to capture true color on a celll phone but i feel these do a fairly good job.

We are going to apply bona nordic on one area, bona natural on another and just bona HD on another to see whoch route we want to go. So far very pleased with the bleaching process.

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Shelley Tattam
Original Author

4 years ago

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Comments (10)

Timothy Winzell
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago
I assume you're using standard two part wood bleach with hydrogen peroxide and sodium hydroxide. Bleach can have stop and lap marks so we always do two coats to ensure the effect is even. If you don't want it quite as white, the bleach can be diluted, but still apply two coats. We've never used NordicSeal right over bleach but I can't imagine why it wouldn't work. We generally use Bona White over bleach.

Regardless of the color you decide on, you should use a Bona sealer. Bona recommends using a sealer before coats of urethane.
Shelley Tattam
Original Author
4 years ago
Thanks! Our hardwood people are using Bona HD. Two coats on our lower level bedrooms and three on the heavy tracfic areas upstairs (kitchen and living area).
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Shelley Tattam
Original Author
4 years ago
Top photo is two coats of Bleach and Bona HD. Bottom is two coats of bleach with one coat of Bona Nordic.
Shelley Tattam
Original Author
4 years ago
You can see how two coats of bleach cut down the red/pink tones and gave it more of white oak coloring which was the goal.
Shelley Tattam
Original Author
4 years ago
Two coats bleach on red

oak. No sealer yet.
Rick Rivers
4 years ago
Shelley were the floors previously stained (and if so what color) or was this new red oak floors? Thanks
mafuada
4 years ago
Shelley...good morning...Do you recall which type of bleach you used? Did you use a 2 part,Oxalic Acid based bleach, or other?
Zach
4 years ago
This is exactly what we’re doing any you just confirmed we’re doing it right! Thank you for posting… like you said, not a ton of info.

@Timothy Winzell - With the A/B bleach kit, 1 gal each (2 gal total), can we expect one kit to cover at least 300sq ft (one coat)? We’re buying the bleach kits from City Flooring, unsure about the brand.
Timothy Winzell
4 years ago
It goes on fairly thin so I'd expect at least 400 feet per gallon, or 800 per unit. Factor in for two coats.