going light on red oak floors-the Modern Memaw House

Oh the Modern Memaw House (this was my client’s Memaw’s house and we modernized it just a bit, so it seemed only fitting to name this project the Modern Memaw Project). The house that started it all. The house that began our quest for achieving a light floor while hiding as much pink as we can in red oak. Please don’t mistake us for magicians and think that we can turn red oak into white oak, but after much research, mixing, testing and sampling, this custom mix (or some variation) has become our go to for our clients that have their heart set on light hardwood floors but their pocketbooks set on keeping their existing red oak.

photo Emily Rose Photo

This project is one that I was both the interior designer as well as the hardwood flooring company and we knew from the initial concept that we wanted to go light on the floors.

The problem was that after pulling up the carpet, we found orange sixty plus year old red oak floors. Red oak is not my friend when going with a design plan that includes light airy hardwood floors. So I set to work searching for the perfect stain mix to hide as much of it as we could while still going light.

photos Emily Rose Photo

Here is the same room as above all dressed up and ready to go. The same red oak floors we found hiding under that carpet just waiting to be the star of the show.

Here they are after sanding down the wood to the raw red oak.

Buffing on the custom stain mix.

Since the kitchen (above) had linoleum, we added new raw 2 1/4” red oak in this room so that the hardwood seamlessly flowed throughout the house.

See that linoleum we started with? And that wall paneling? We just painted it white by the way.

The first coat going on the family room floors.

And the kitchen floors.

Here they are drying. While this custom mix doesn’t completely remove the red and some boards still show a pinkish hue, (remember we aren’t magicians and neither is your flooring professional) this is the best solution we have found to hiding as much of it as we can. It is a solution to the problem of having existing red oak but wanting to go light but it doesn’t turn those red oak floors into white oak.

The island was made of red oak, only because the flooring was and I wanted to keep the same tones and wood species throughout. The cabinet maker applied a clear coat to the island. While the island is not hardwood flooring, this is a close example of how the red oak floors would look if only a clear waterbased coat was applied, a light orangey-red tone which is not what we were going for on the floors. Since right next to each other, it is easy to see that the flooring with the custom mix hides a lot more red than just applying a waterbased poly with no stain.

While we can’t magically make red oak into white oak, we are so happy that we’ve found a way to hide as much as we can if wanting a light floor. If you have red oak and absolutely don’t want to see any pink boards, it’s always best to go dark, really dark. More on our favorite dark stain on red oak here. Want to chat stain with us for your flooring project? Book a virtual call with us here.