Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Interior Design Project... Gray Hardwood Floors

Day 1 before the old carpet came out.8 inch wide plank White Oak going inDeciding on the perfect stain held us up about a weekSo many choices, really hard to tell from a small square what a big room will look like
This was the winner, Fumed, Smoke
Stage 1 of the staining, after the Fumed Stain went down
Step 2, Smoke Oil being applied which really made the grain of the wood pop
Finished Floor
Our new vintage marble coffee table was the first piece of furniture back in the room


We recently had new hardwood floors put in to our house, 8 inch, wide plank, gorgeous white oak floors. We had pretty much decided that they would be stained super dark chocolate brown, not black but as close to black as you can get. We tried a bunch of different combinations of the Min Wax stains that were recommended to us and nothing was even close to what we had in our heads. So the search continued, until I discovered a store in Greenwich that sells Carlisle floors, and in the most dreamy colors (stains). But I was disappointed to learn all of the stains are customized and sold with Carlisle's floors, which for us wasn't an option because we had already bought the wood. I was beginning to get completely frustrated when the woman at the store suggested Rubio Monocoat, a stain that provided us with many different options. I was so excited to discover the product we had been searching for actually existed. While still on a mission to get the perfect chocolate brown/black color (which we did achieve) we started to consider going in a completely different direction, gray floors. Which are nearly impossible to find great pictures of online, definitely not the norm. But I loved the idea of having something totally unique. So we ordered another round of samples in which we finally discovered the perfect stain. Despite all of the negative feedback and weird looks we got from friends and family when we told them we were staining our floors gray, we are super excited with the results. What do you think?

10 comments:

yumiko said...

Love!!! choco is out, grey is in!!! very nice!!!

Unknown said...

very nice!!!

True Event said...

Thanks ladies! Now if only I could decide on a carpet. I have ordered 4 so far, all wrong!

Anonymous said...

Was the smoke oil you used this oil in smoke color: http://www.monocoat.us/Natural-Oil-Finish/ or this: http://www.monocoat.us/Smoke/ ?

Anonymous said...

Love the color and have a similar project on my hands, could you pls detail which Rubio Monocoat products you actually used
Thanks
Thomas

Rose said...

these floors are gorgeous, i'm putting down new floors and have been searching for just the right color/tone - i would like to use the fume/smoke combination but have one question: how does it wear if you cannot polyurethane? any other alternatives to keep it looking great year after year, especially with a family living there. Thanks!
Rose

Amy Wojaczyk said...

I absolutely love your floors!!! We are trying to accomplish this look, but the first round with the flooring contractor went bad. I'm going to give this process a try. What did you seal the floor with after the last coat?

James A. - Wood Expert said...

When staining floors gray. You want to seal/coat it with waterborne finish. As, oilbased finish has a lot of amber tones which make gray look greenish brown - not good.

Mike Brada said...

Hi All,
just wanted to post and say thanks! Mayo did a great job for us.
Many thanks!
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Platinum Flooring Company

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