Jocelyn - We ended up going with Lobas white stain. It didn’t erase the pink, but we’re happy with the results (anything is better than the bright orange they were before) good luck with yours!!

First pic is of the red oak stairs. Then the next two are the scary Bona red-out reaction that temporarily blackened SOME of the stairs as the tannins in the wood reacted with the Bona process... no one tells you about that! TWO rounds of the 2 step process were necessary to even out the color of the individual planks.

Last pic is the stain samples on a twice Bona'd sample planks. I've used plain wood bleach before and I agree that process removes all the character from the wood.

Your floors look great, Jen!

Paul, what stain did you end up

choosing and can you show us the final product?

Everything is covered with plastic and paper right now for painting. I'll post when I can. BTW, 4 of the top stairs needed to be resanded (bona'd again) because of blotchiness with the stain. The best we can figure out is the heat/light from the giant skylight above the top stairs warmed up the wood and being that the pores were wide open, the stain took differently. It was done during the recent heat wave so it makes sense. Controlling the temperature of the wood by covering the skylight did the trick.

Love how my floors are turning out! Here is a photo showing the newly sanded red oak which is very pink and the other side is 1 coat of Berger-Seidel Pinkqualizer plus one coat of their Nordic white plus 1 coat of Royal Matte. There will be one to two more coats of royal matt applied. the rooms are looking so light and airy now

jocelyn this is a new product for me. Can we see a full floor shot?

Laura, the pinkqualizer is very new as it came out just this year I believe. I'll be happy to upload some more photos when the floors are finished. The room you can see at the bottom is now filled with a bunch of furniture from the other rooms. So, hopefully by the end of the week I should be able to take some full floor photos. My floor refinisher is a perfectionist, so we are on his timeline. He finishes floors like furniture-not your average, run of the mill, get the floors done as fast as possible type. I will say they are coming along beautifully! We tried different amounts of Nordic White over the pinkqualizer, from 1 to 4 coats, but really loved just the hint of white of 1 coat.

do you know if it can be used with other stains?

no, sorry I don't know. I was interested in a particular look and my floor refinisher thought this would give me the closest to the finish I wanted. But I don't see why it wouldn't work with other stains. We tested with Berger-Seidel's Natural Stain- but I wanted a different look and finish.

So odd that he would only do half the floor with so many steps involved.

not really-we were testing out on one room- then before the final coats go on it, the furniture was all put in that room while the rest of the downstairs floors are getting refinished.

Laura- here is a photo of a finished floor. It is so hard to get an accurate photo. It's a bit lighter and has no pink tones in person. Natural late afternoon light in a Southeast facing exposure. This is 1 coat Berger-Seidel Pinkqualizer, 1 coat of their Nordic White, and 2 coats of their Royal Mat. I absolutely love how they have turned out. Lots of color and grain variation in our 12 year old red oak, but it just adds to the charm of the floors in our coastal home.

Just got mine done, they came out beyond expectations.

Red out x2

Nordic x 1

Traffic hd satin x2

looks great! Is this a before and after shot? can we see a close up of the room with the chandelier?

Haha not even close, chrck out the pics from before. Will also include our sample square as we were deciding between 1 or 2 coats of nordic. Not sure if my company knew what they were doing with the nordic (not enough sanding after nordic?) but everyone that saw it said 2 coats looked like the grain was covered with a haze

After doing my homework it appears the disadvantage to doing only one coat is the higher possibility of lap marks that only show when you put traffic on after. They redid my living room(sanding down to raw wood, back to red out) after I pointed these out.

I think I saw a professional on here comment on 2 coats being the same result if sanded properly. The owner of this company seemed very good but the employees really seemed to not exactly take their trade too seriously.

Lap marks

Failed touch up before redoing living/chandelier room

Lessons learned for me, hopefully this may help someone else out..

-Ask to see your home during each step of the process. Mistakes are easier to correct on the spot and otherwise may require a complete redo if not handled immediately.

-Pictures online are somewhat meaningless. You can hardly see the red oak "red" in my pics of half sanded floors, although it was quite present. Lighting and the temp your camrea sets completely changes the mapping from your eyes->photo. I played with flash, lighting temp and photos in Adobe light room to try to determine the differences in sample squares.

-Look for unsanded areas if you are refinishing pre manufactured, had a ton on the stairs that stuck out like a sore thumb after going significantly lighter.

-2 applications red out makes for a much more dramatic difference than 1

Arda, we’re planning to do two rounds of red out as well but trying to determine drying time between. Did they start the second round right away? Was there a 12 hour dry time before doing the sealer, or did they go right into it? thanks!

Bona has these videos. Bona Red Out™ - Instructional Video - 2022 - YouTube . Bona Red Out™ - Best Practices - YouTube

@pkr (for 2nd redout application) instructions say to wait until wood is visibility dry, appears this is what my guys did as well.

Before the sealer instructions are explicit about using a pinless moisture gage to ensure wood has no extra moisture compared to pre red-out. I am not a flooring guy, but from what I have learned this is probably super important before sealing

@Arda The floors looks amazing. Are you going to paint the walls and the hand rail too? I have the same wall and hand rail colors, would love to see the finished results.

Thanks Jing. No plans for painting the walls and hand rails, hands are full replacing baulsters and painting the trim under them 😅

G&S Flooring, can you please show some before and after pictures of the Pinkqualizer treatment on red oak?

Marketting demo. It's a new product.

Thanks for posting Dan. it is diifficult to see the wood flooring in the video so hoping we can see some in actual in home results.

gmazz- if you look earlier in this thread you will see that we used pinkqualizer on our floors. Floors are lighter in person than they look in the photos- hard to get a good picture.

this may show it a bit better. But it still looks darker in photos than real life.

here is a before photo of floors

Thank you Jocelyn. Did your floor refinishers have experience with Pinkqualizer or did you ask them to use it?

Your kitchen looks terrific!

thanks, gmazz7. Our floor refinisher suggested using it. I had asked about Bona Red Out and he felt this was a superior product. I think he had only used it once before- it is a very new product.

Thanks! it does sound more predictable.

We live in western suburbs of Chicago and are interested in having our red oak floors refinished with this product. If anyone has experience using it and would like to give us a quote, please post a link to your business.

Jocelyn Hartman, do you have any updates about the durability and current color of your floors. We are leaning toward the exact combo you used on our 45yo red oak floors (BS pinkqualizer, 1 coat aqua choice white, 2 coats aqua choice royal mat). But being that the pinkqualizer is a newer product, I’m curious if the tannins creep back to color it as I’ve heard can happen with other products. Also, I’ve read issues with staining and durability. Those seem to come from only 2 coats instead of 3, but I have 3 active kids and we live on 6 rugged acres, so I need something that is as durable as possible.

Rachel Britts- color still looks great and we love our floors. However, we have run into 2 issues as far as durability. The first is we got a puppy who threw up a small amount on the flooring and it has stained the floor. The other is we have gotten a few "scuff" marks. I'm not sure how to describe them but I know our vacuum cleaner made a couple of them when I brought it over to sweep the rugs. I now carry the vacuum over to the rugs. I don't know if another coat of the royal matte would help these issues, but I'd certainly ask. Or if there is a more durable top coat.

If, you are having durability issues. Your installer may have skipped out on the hardener. The hardener makes it more challenging for application for some, since it causes rapid drying.

Thanks Jocelyn for the update!
And
G&S Floor Service, I’ve taken note of a lot of valuable input from you on other posts—thank you so much! It seems like you are knowledgeable about both Loba products AND Berger Seidel. Do you have a preference nowadays? Factors I’d be most interested in would be durability as well as ease of use, I think.
In the past few days, I’ve shifted from leaning toward BS now toward Loba. It seems Loba is a more widespread brand. I’m not finding as many people who have used Berger Seidel and shared experiences about it. But does Loba have a red-out product like BS?
I am also starting to lean more toward a satin finish now, after reading about the challenges of the raw/invisible/ultra matte finish. As so many people do, I love the look of our current new unfinished red oak (I don’t even mind the pink tones so much as they currently are)…but I’m a big fan of lower maintenance, and it seems the satin finish is going to be better than invisible, even with a perfect installation, which I know it will not be because we are DIYers not professionals. Any updated input??? TIA!

@Rachel Britts, Unfortunately, Loba do not have their own equivalent to Red Out. You can use Berger's Pinkqualizer with Loba finishes.

As for a new Fav product? I like Berger's Ceramic Star product line. Fast 2 hour dry with a 12 hour cure. The faster the better for me. Product goes down easy, levels great, maybe the best leveling of all products that i have used. It's a ceramic finish so durability is comparable to Loba's Supra AT. The viscosity is thicker compared to all other finishes in it's class: Supra AT & Traffic HD.

Berger is a newer brand to the states compared to the other two. Not as many suppliers will stock their product, unlike Bona. You can pickup Bona products at paint stores, along with the regular suppliers, all within 5-10 miles of each other, in my area. There are only a few locations that carries Berger and Loba products all within 20 miles of each other. Accessibility will deter a lot of buyers, but that does not mean it is not a good product.

Raw, Invisible and Wood look sheens have cleaning challenges compared to matte, satin, semi and hi gloss. Raw, Invisible and wood look have a near zero sheen similar to egg shell paint sheens. Dirt and oil will stick to the texture of the finish, which can become challenging to remove. You need to use a cleaner with a good degreaser. Otherwise, the shinier the finish the easier the cleaning.

For a modern look you want to use raw, invisible, wood look or ultra/extra matte. Satin, semi and gloss will give you a traditional look.

G&S Flooring, again thanks a million times for your valuable input!!!
You are the first person to confirm my question whether pinkqualizer can be used with Loba. Great information. I was hoping to use it with the Supra AT. But now I will look into the BS Ceramic Star. I had seen it on their site but hadn’t heard anyone using it so didn’t even think about it. I just read the technical data sheet, looks good. Can I ask you some questions since you’ve used it?…
—BS says application with Tbar OR roller. What do you prefer?
—the self leveling properties and ability to apply in “thick rich coats” sounds forgiving… and 2 hr pot life seems comparable to other similar finishes. BUT We have a huge area we are covering, almost 900 sq feet of open concept living/dining/kitchen, and we aren’t professionals (read: I work slowly). Any tips/tricks/suggestions??? I’m thinking maybe tape off areas and conquer 1 at a time?
—tech sheet says no sealer needed, but I’ve read other flooring experts say they always seal, to prevent tannin creep or side bonding or other issues. Have you used it with/without? I was leaning toward FlexSealer earlier.
—if I wanted a slight whitening, would it be safe to do one coat of aquachoice white first? I didn’t see anywhere on the tech sheet about being compatible with other BS systems. Will go look again…
Finally, I live in San Diego area and haven’t looked extensively for products, but I’ve seen Floor Mechanics recommended several places as a good place to buy products online. Agree? Or avoid online purchasing?

Thank you again for ALL your input!!!

I roll all my sealers and polyurethanes with new rollers on every coat, unless it's a single component finish. I save the new rollers for the final coats. Make sure you prime your rollers before rolling out finishes. Basically make sure the roller is saturated with finish, before rolling out any finish. Otherwise, you will have dry spots and skip rolling with new rollers.

Regarding speed or pace of application, for 900 square feet , it shoould only take you a couple of hours to apply the product for two person application, maybe four hours tops for DIYers. Just mix 1 gallon at a time. Before the gallon goes empty, mix the next gallon to get it ready.

I have always used Ceramic Star over a stain or over one of their white finishes.

I would avoid ordering finishes online to avoid running short. If, you run short on finishes. It will put a big delay in the schedule. You can always purchase extra but, you can be wasting money on finishes that you may never use. The product does have a expired date. Find a local supplier that will sell to public.

G&S Flooring, again, thank you for this valuable advice!!!! I plan to call Berger seidle rep tomorrow to ask more questions and find out any local suppliers. Hopefully in a few weeks I will have successful pictures to share! 🤞🏼 Thanks so much for your willingness to help!!!

G&S Flooring, oh! Another question! Do you use a special wood filler (BS or otherwise) before using Pinkqualizer??? Our next step is to fill the gaps and imperfections (and our mistakes) in our floors, and I would prefer a pre mixed trowel fill, and BS’s options don’t seem ideal for our needs (not premixed, stays sticky…), but in a review for Goodfilla’s product, one user said it reacted with Bona’s redout and the photo looks terrible. Wondering if Pinkqualizer would do the same. What do you use?

I use Wood wise wood filler. Red out or pinkqualizer does not do anything to it. There are no tannins in wood filler to react to.

G&S Floor Service, Thank you! Again!!! Ordering some Woodwise right now!

Jocelyn,

Can you update us on your red oak floors? I'm looking to do mine now. Thanks!

Wendy- what would you like to know? We love our floors. We're very happy with the Berger-Seidel products and everyone that comes in comments on how beautiful they are

We just did pinkqulizer over brand new red oak floors. These are without finish coat yet