First, these white oak floors with a beautiful Scandinavian whitewash treatment suffered damage from the hard rubber tips of the imported Italian bar stools.
Then, when the steps needed to be replaced after some renovations to the doorway, red oak was used instead of white oak.
Add in a failed restoration attempt that used paint instead of stain and, well, you can see the results for yourself.
The scrapes could be covered with a runner but there was just no hiding the steps.
The flooring extends throughout 3 large rooms and a hallway without a break and the homeowners felt that refinishing everything would involve too much upheaval. What to do?
We proposed sanding just the damaged boards, using wood bleach to lighten the red oak so its base tone would be as close to white oak as possible and then applying a custom whitewash mix to get the repaired boards to match the original flooring as closely as possible.
Sanding just the damaged boards requires patience and finesse but is much less disruptive than refinishing an entire floor.
A dustless sanding system capturing 99% of the dust from our sanders plus a temporary plastic enclosure ensure that furnishings remain clean.
While the cost per square foot for this type of surgical restoration is steep, the number of square feet involved is comparatively small so the total budget is a fraction of what a full refinishing job would cost.
Our strong understanding of color and staining wood allowed us to blend repairs into the existing flooring, minimizing the disruption to our clients' lives and saving them a ton of money.
When we finished the staining, we realized that the boards and steps we had refinished looked too new compared to the existing floor. A bit of distressing prior to applying the top coat was all it took to make the restored wood blend right in.
Before...
After
As a final step, we tracked down special felt tipped covers sized to fit European chair legs so our clients could use their bar stools without worrying about damaging their newly restored floor boards.
