When I said two days ago that I was going to refinish my newly finished red oak hardwood floors to make them lighter, the overwhelming majority of people thought that I was actually being serious about that. Y’all know me well. I’m the queen of the redo. If I’m not 100% satisfied with something, I generally have no problem at all turning right around and redoing it. But there were a few people who thought I was joking. I get it. After all, I did post that on April 1st, so it would have been a perfect April Fool’s joke.
But what surprised me the most was the overwhelming positive response I got. I thought that I would get so much more pushback than I did. The first thing I said to my mom when we sat down for lunch yesterday was, “Did you see the responses I got on that post?! Almost everyone said I should go for it!” She was rather shocked, too. She and I had already talked about it, and she was also expecting a whole lot more pushback on the idea of me redoing such a big project that actually turned out really pretty.
So was I serious, or was it an April Fool’s joke? I’m pretty sure 100% of you actually know the answer to that.
I was very serious. In fact, before I wrote that post, I had already sanded down some of the floor inside the washer cabinet just to see how hard it would be to get the finish off of the floor. I figured if I chickened out, at least it would be hidden under the washer and no one would ever see it.
But now I’ve passed the point of no return. Yesterday, after I finished all of the wood filling on all of the cabinets, I spent about 30 minutes sanding the finish off of the floor right up against the cabinets so that I can get the baseboards attached today.
I don’t have to have all of the floors sanded at this point, and I won’t be sanding all of the floors with my 5-inch orbital sander. 😀 But before I can attach the baseboards, I at least needed to get the areas right up against the cabinets sanded. As long as those areas are sanded, I can move forward with my plans to sand, prime, and paint the cabinets (hopefully this weekend), and then I can come back to the floors a bit later.
So last night, after I finished working on the closet, I started watching videos of different people refinishing their red oak hardwood floors with a natural finish so that I could decide exactly what I want to do with mine. What I decided almost immediately is that I’ll be using Bona products this time around. Those seem to be the most popular products used to get a natural finish on red oak flooring.
But that only narrows it down a little bit. That’s kind of like deciding to use Minwax stain to stain your dresser. Narrowing down the brand still leaves you with about 50 options of stain colors. Bona has so many great products, and there are lots of different variations that people use to get that natural finish. So I’m still trying to decide exactly which products I want to use. I’ll show you the three that seem to be the most popular to get a light, natural finish. I’ve taken some screenshots from my favorite videos to show you, and these are all red oak floors.
And here’s what they looked like after sanding and with the Bona NordicSeal and Bona TrafficHD in a satin finish.
They used Bona NaturalSeal followed by Bona TrafficHD, and here’s what it looked like after…
It’s really hard to tell what the real color is from a screenshot of a video, but to me, those floors look like they still have quite a bit of red to them. I think those floors are beautiful, but I really don’t want that much red in my finished floors.
And here’s the floor with Bona NaturalSeal followed by Bona TrafficHD…
That one doesn’t have that red undertone to it even though the video description says that it’s red oak. And evidently, according to the description, they didn’t do anything special to remove those red undertones.
And here’s what it looks like with Bona NaturalSeal and Bona TrafficHD.
I haven’t found any examples of the ClearSeal on red oak flooring, but I’d really like to see an example of it. I’m pretty sure I’ve ruled out the NordicSeal. It’s just too white for my taste, and I fear that it’s a bit too trendy right now. I actually do like for wood to have a bit of warmth to it, so from what I’ve seen, I’d lean more towards the NaturalSeal. But I really want to see an example of ClearSeal on red oak before I make my final decision.
Bona also has a product called Red Out that bleaches out the red undertones from red oak flooring. Regardless of the finish I use, I’m about 99% sure that I’ll start with the Red Out first so that I don’t take a chance of those red/orange undertones coming through on the final finish. That’s a two-step process that seems to be relatively quick and easy. You simply roll Part 1 of the product onto the floor, and before it’s dry completely, you roll on Part 2 of the product. And you can repeat those steps again if needed.
So all of that to say that yes, I was serious, as most of you knew very well. And if you have any experience with these products, especially the ClearSeal that I couldn’t find any examples of on red oak, I’d love to hear what you have to say about them!
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.
