It's not standard practice. Normally, the contractor will bring an extra piece or two of the hardwood you're using and test stains side by side on those pieces for you to make a selection. Then they will apply the stain you've chosen to the floor.

Hi @Sabrina Alfin Interiors,

Just wondering: I completely understand using sample boards on new flooring. But I have always thought that you needed to test the stain on your own floors when re-finishing. (Maybe not every color under the sun, but the top two or three anyway). There's so much variation in existing floor, and older wood is so different from newer wood.

Of course it is always possible that I've been thinking wrong. I'll admit that! But thought I would ask -- and maybe something of the flooring pros will give us some information from their perspective too.

The existing hardwood will be sanded down to remove the old stain or clearcoat. So the boards will be like new. As long as the wood species of the hardwood sample used to test is the same species, the age of the existing floor shouldn't matter.

Sabrina in my region (SE) they always do the samples directly on the floor then sand them off again once the color has been chosen. OP make sure if you go this route that they put finish over it as that affects the color.

Interesting. Never have seen it done this way here in the SF Bay Area. Live and learn!

The last time I did new, oak strip floors in my house the flooring contractor just poured several different stains in various spots before he had done the floor sanding, and I chose the one I wanted. Then he sanded all the floors and the stain disappeared. That's what I would want to do if I had it to do again.

I am so glad I asked, so that now I know this is another thing on the long list of regional variations to keep up with. Maybe someone who has nothing else to do (not me!) needs to compile a list (HA HA!)

It's standard here to test directly on the floor, in the house because you are typically refinishing an existing floor of some age. The only time I would not expect on-site trials is if it were all new floors to be site finished and the finisher could test on identical flooring pieces to be looked at on-site.

It's standard in my area. I just did it last week with a remodel client.

Your floors are 35 years young. Samples on new floor boards is fine. if if, floors are 50 plus years. Samples should be done on actual floor.

When we refinished the floors in our Los Angeles house, the floor guy (3rd generation running the business) tested right on the freshly sanded floors.

We recently went through this. Before the actual process was done on the floors, I was going back and forth to the flooring supply company with left over boards from the existing floors. I had the time and wanted to make sure we loved the stain we would ultimately choose. We were able to narrow down a few color that we liked. From there, once the refinishing process had begun, the contractor put those same colors on the sanded floor.

A machine sanded floor may absorb the stain a bit differently than a sample board. The color on ours was actually a bit deeper and more saturated, once the stain and finish was put down on the actual floor vs sample boards.