Choosing The Right Stain For Your Hardwood

Choosing the Perfect Stain: A Guide to Custom Wood Floor Staining

Written by customhardwood on June 3, 2024. Posted in Floor Care, Floor Repair. No Comments on Choosing the Perfect Stain: A Guide to Custom Wood Floor Staining

Choosing the right stain for your wood floors can transform your home’s look and feel. This guide covers the basics of wood floor staining, types of stains available, and the benefits of professional staining services. For expert results, consider Custom Hardwood Flooring LA to ensure a flawless and lasting finish.

Choosing the right stain for your wood floors is a crucial decision that impacts the overall look and feel of your home. A well-chosen stain can enhance the natural beauty of your wood, complement your interior decor, and add value to your property. In this guide, we will explore the key aspects of wood floor staining, including different types of stains, the benefits of professional staining services, and tips to ensure your floors look their best. For residents in Los Angeles, Custom Hardwood Flooring LA offers expert services to help you achieve the perfect finish.

Understanding Wood Floor Staining

Wood floor staining involves applying a colored liquid to the surface of the wood to change its appearance. The process enhances the wood’s natural grain and can either darken or lighten its color. Staining is a popular choice for homeowners looking to refresh their flooring without the expense of a full replacement. The right stain can bring out the best in your wood floors, highlighting their unique characteristics and ensuring they match your interior design.

Types of Wood Stains

There are several types of wood stains to choose from, each offering different effects and benefits:

Oil-Based Stains: Known for their rich, deep colors, oil-based stains penetrate the wood deeply, providing a durable finish. They are easy to apply and have a longer drying time, allowing for a more even application.

Water-Based Stains: These stains offer a quicker drying time and are available in a wide range of colors. They are less odorous than oil-based stains and are considered more environmentally friendly.

Gel Stains: Ideal for vertical surfaces and less absorbent woods, gel stains provide a uniform color and are less likely to streak. They sit on the surface of the wood rather than soaking in, which can create a unique finish.

Lacquer Stains: These stains dry quickly and offer a very durable finish. They are often used in commercial settings or high-traffic areas but require more skill to apply evenly.

Benefits of Professional Staining Services

While DIY staining can be tempting, hiring a professional service like Custom Hardwood Flooring LA ensures the best results. Here are some benefits of choosing a professional:

Expertise and Experience: Professionals have the knowledge and experience to choose the right stain for your wood type and desired look. They understand how different stains interact with various wood grains and can achieve a flawless finish.

High-Quality Products: Professional staining services use high-quality stains and finishes that offer better durability and a more polished look than store-bought products.

Proper Preparation and Application: Professionals ensure that the wood surface is properly prepared, sanded, and cleaned before applying the stain. This preparation is crucial for a smooth and even finish.

Time and Convenience: Staining floors is a time-consuming process that requires careful attention to detail. Hiring professionals saves you time and ensures the job is done correctly, without the hassle of a DIY project.

Final Thoughts

Choosing the perfect stain for your wood floors can transform the look of your home, adding warmth and elegance. By understanding the different types of stains and the benefits of professional staining services, you can make an informed decision that enhances your living space. Custom Hardwood Flooring LA offers expert staining services to help you achieve beautiful, long-lasting results. Contact us today to discuss your wood floor staining needs and schedule a consultation.

FAQ’s

What types of wood stains are available for my floors?

There are several types of wood stains available, including oil-based, water-based, gel stains, and hybrid stains. Each type has its own benefits and is suitable for different wood types and desired finishes. At Custom Hardwood Flooring LA, we help you choose the best stain to achieve your desired look.

How do I choose the right stain color for my wood floors?

Choosing the right stain color involves considering the existing décor, natural light, and the wood species of your floors. Custom Hardwood Flooring LA provides samples and expert advice to help you select a color that complements your home’s aesthetic and enhances the natural beauty of your wood floors.

Why should I hire a professional for wood floor staining?

Professional staining ensures an even application, proper penetration, and a flawless finish. Custom Hardwood Flooring LA has the expertise, tools, and experience to handle the staining process efficiently, avoiding common DIY mistakes and ensuring long-lasting, beautiful results.

Water Damaged Hardwood Floors – What To Do?

Written by customhardwood on September 2, 2021. Posted in Floor Repair.

The unfortunate truth in dealing with water damaged hardwood floors is that it can be costly and comes with the time-consuming repair. Water leaks or floods will not discriminate against what type of floors they damage. It makes no difference whether the floor was a one-of-a-kind custom-made hardwood flooring or if it is a low-end DIY snap-together type of wood flooring.

So what to do when water damage happens to your hardwood flooring?

First, we assess the current state of the water damaged hardwood floors to identify and eliminate any source of moisture. Once the source of moisture is removed the water damaged hardwood floors needs to be addressed before further damage occurs. In cases like this water damages may not only include damage on the hardwood flooring itself but also may include the substrate or sub-floor.

Assessing the water damaged hardwood floors means looking out for signs of moisture that can promote the growth of mold and other organisms which increases the risk for serious health problems. Also, corrosion on metal fasteners such as nails.

When a wood floor starts to buckle, it requires replacement. Buckling of the wood flooring means that the fasteners and adhesives are no longer working. and the system will never return to its original state.

After the damage assessment is done, we then evaluate the wood flooring materials which include the wood flooring species, cut, profile, finishes, and the installation methods so to properly address the repairs.

This is followed by determining the target moisture content of the floor as related to the humidity and temperature of the area or location of the property. Hence, a professional hardwood flooring installer will conduct moisture testing. The wood flooring installer will most likely use pinless, dielectric meters to scan the flooring surface and map the damage. Also, he or she may use an insulated pin, hammer probe-type meters to achieve readings at multiple depths of wood flooring and sub-flooring.

It is equally important that sub-floor materials be thoroughly evaluated too. Water finds its way through any floor covering and will potentially adversely affect the sub-floor. Water damage to the sub-flooring is critical to address the water damage hardwood floors issue. Below are typical sub-flooring materials and what a professional hardwood flooring installer would address when evaluating:

Plywood – swelling, distortion, and dilapidation due to exposure to a high level of moisture. It is required that when these damages occur that the plywood sub-floor be replaced. Make sure that the replacement is according to industry standards.

Oriented Strand Board (OSB) – once exposed to water, swelling can occur with this type of sub-flooring. The swelling will create a decrease in the sub-floors density and a reduction in within-board strength due to the release of compaction stress created during the pressing process of manufacturing. When damage is evident OSB sub-flooring materials need to be replaced.

Concrete – is a very porous material and typically won’t show damaged when exposed to water. However, adhesives, sealers, and other compounds will slow the drying of a wetted concrete slab. The moisture from the concrete sub-floor will seal through any wood flooring installed on top of it. When a property has concrete sub-flooring moisture content testing is done. Hardwood flooring installers will have to put plywood on top of it and a moisture barrier sealer to make sure that any wood flooring will be installed on top of it won’t buckle over time.

Needless to say, when dealing with water damaged hardwood floors professional help is needed. It is best to do your homework to understand the best way to address the issue.

Need to schedule a free on-site estimate?

CHFLA is a family owned hardwood flooring business since 1994. We believe in providing professional hardwood flooring services with the best customer service that we can possibly provide. Licensed, bonded and insured; we have provided hardwood floor refinishing, all types of wood floor installation, custom, staining, sanding, repair and restoration for the Greater Los Angeles area and its neighboring communities.

Call us today at: 323-799-9954 or Schedule a FREE On-site Estimate

Hardwood Floor Refinishing VS Buffing, What’s The Difference?

Written by customhardwood on July 2, 2021. Posted in Floor Care, Floor Repair, Refinishing.

Hardwood Floor Refinishing Vs Buffing, What’s The Difference?

You had hardwood floors installed at your beautiful home. Several years after, they no longer look as vibrant, finish started looking dull and have minimal, light, micro scratches. Still beautiful though. But now you just want to revive your wood flooring without having to sand the floor, so what are your wood flooring options?

Refinishing Hardwood Versus Hardwood Floor Buffing

Stained Damaged Hardwood Floors that will need to be sanded and refinished

We have encountered this numerous times over the years. Sometimes homeowners will call and tell us they don’t want to have their wood floors sanded but they just want to “clean” them. We call this hardwood floor buffing or wood flooring screening. Buffing hardwood floors is just lightly sanding off the top finish of the hardwood flooring. This process can help improve the overall look of the floor, remove light scratches and other imperfections that are just on the finish.

However, hardwood floor buffing or screening have its limitations. It does not effectively remove deep scratches that are on the wood. It will also not remove deep stains, dents, and gauges or other hardwood floor imperfections. To take care of all this hardwood flooring issue, we recommend sanding the hardwood floor and refinishing it by applying coats of the polyurethane finish.

Sanding hardwood floors, on the other hand, is the process wherein the top layer of your hardwood flooring is sanded off with different grits of sandpapers at different phases of the process. Whether your floors can be sanded or not depends on the wear layer that your wood flooring currently have. If there is no longer enough wear layer left and the engineered wood flooring is still sanded down, you expose the plywood plank and risk breaking the flooring plank. At this point it is usually when replacing your hardwood floors is recommended.

This type of restoring or rejuvenating your hardwood floors requires much more intensive work compared to just buffing the hardwood floors.
Hardwood floor buffing or screening is quite a popular choice with homeowners that have wood flooring that is not so worn out and are just looking to have their floors looking fresh once again. Also, we found that buffing hardwood floors are sometimes the last recourse we can do to improve the clients’ hardwood floors, when they can no longer be sanded. After buffing the wood floors, a fresh coat of finish is applied. Clients have the option to apply as little as one coat of polyurethane finish or more depending on their preference.

As we have indicated before, hardwood floor buffing is recommended for addressing concerns that are far more superficial on the wood flooring. So depending on the extent of the issues your wood flooring might have, be prepared to opt for a much extensive hardwood flooring restoration with having to sand and refinished it instead.

So the next time that you are considering having some hardwood flooring restoration work done, figure out if buffing your wood flooring can be an alternative choice over sanding and refinishing your hardwood floors. Both can improve the overlook of your floor and potentially address wood flooring problems such as hardwood flooring dullness, scratches, dents, gauges, etc.

It is also best that a professional hardwood flooring service provider is employed. This ensures that the work is done right the first time and the homeowners are spared from any liability arising from hiring non-qualified wood flooring installers or refinishers.

About Custom Hardwood Flooring LA

Need to schedule a free on-site estimate?

Custom Hardwood Floors LA, a flooring contractor, offers Low Price Hardwood Floor Refinishing and Hardwood Floor Installation Services throughout Los Angeles, specializing in Refinishing, Installation, Repairs, Custom Floors, Exotic wood.

Call us today at: 323-799-9954 or Schedule a FREE On-site Estimate

Resurfacing Hardwood Floors

Written by customhardwood on April 20, 2021. Posted in Floor Care, Floor Repair, Refinishing.

Resurfacing hardwood floors is a sure fire way to update your wood flooring. Specially during the spring time when it usually means spring cleaning! So before you start busting your chops making your home sparkly clean; Let me remind you that nothing like a well polished, newly buffed or refinished hardwood floor to bring your spring cleaning in full circle. So what is the Difference? When do we buff the floors and when do we do sanding?

LA Hardwood Floor Resurfacing

Having your hardwood floor buffed occasionally would make your wood floor more durable and will usually take care of the light stains and scratches on the finish. Buffing is a lighter process of sanding the floor and applying a coat of polyurethane finish.

Sanding hardwood floors is a more thorough way of resurfacing the floor. It requires a more abrasive kind of sandpaper to remove deeper scratches, dents, and imperfections off of the wood flooring. After evenly sanding we apply three coats of the polyurethane finish. The finish that we apply is water-based and if our clients have a special preference for a finished example with no VOC finishes then we apply that as well.

It is fairly important that you have a professional and experienced Los Angeles hardwood floor refinisher do the Resurfacing of your floors. This ensures that the sanding process is done right the first time and will not waste the precious wear layer of your hardwood flooring.

About Custom Hardwood Flooring LA

Need to schedule a free on-site estimate?

Call us today at: 323-799-9954

Can My Hardwood Floors Be Sanded And Refinished?

Written by customhardwood on March 2, 2021. Posted in Floor Repair, Refinishing.

Can My Hardwood Floor Be Refinished?

Hardwood floor sanding and refinishing is one great thing you can do with having hardwood flooring installed in your home. Can my hardwood floors be sanded and refinished? This is a question usually asked by hardwood flooring owners, when they find that its time to address some imperfections on their wood flooring. is that this flooring material can be re-surfaced and refinished. This allows you to bring back to life and the beauty of your wood flooring after normal wear and tear or damages that can happen over time.

But how can you determine whether your hardwood flooring can still be sanded or not? The answer lies in how much wear layer is left on your wood flooring. The thicker the wear layer, the better probability that the floor can still be re-surfaced.

Hardwood Floor Refinishing In Los Angeles, CA

Sanding hardwood floors is the process of taking out scratches, dents, and other imperfections in the wood flooring using different levels of coarse sandpapers and a sanding machine. When done professionally, sanding hardwood floors usually takes away about 1 millimeter of your wood flooring surface. So depending on the thickness of the hardwood flooring wear layer, it can be sanded and refinished.

Sanding and refinishing solid hardwood floors is the most ideal. It can be sanded around six to seven times in the course of the wood flooring’s lifetime. A good solid hardwood floor’s wear layer usually starts at 6mm thick. Do take note that sanding the wood flooring’s surface would smoothen and even out the top layer. Distressed hardwood floors usually require hand sanding which is more labor-intensive and time-consuming therefore more costly compared to regular sanding and refinishing work.

Sanding and Refinishing Engineered Hardwood Floors The quality of engineered hardwood floors is usually determined by how thick the wear layer it has. Some engineered hardwood floors can be cheaper in price but have too thin of a wear layer. Having the best interest of our clients in mind, the minimum requirement for us to install an engineered flooring for clients is at least 3mm. This is to make sure that they get their money’s worth because this will allow at least 3-4 times of sanding. Installing anything less than that will only allow 1-2 times of sanding and after that, your wood flooring can not be sanded anymore. Having hardwood floors is known to increase the value of your home. A simple sanding, staining, and refinishing can cost-effectively update the look of your property and take care of any scratches, stains, dents, or imperfection on the wood flooring. When done by a professional the process can be very fast and easy.

Making sure that the flooring technicians are well experienced, licensed, and have your best interest can and will save you from a lot of unnecessary problems. Typically, homeowners tend to overlook the importance of the thickness of the wear layer of the wood flooring. They tend to get hardwood flooring installed base on how cheap they can get it.

Need to schedule a free on-site estimate?

Call us today at: 323-799-9954

Schedule a FREE On-site Estimate

Water Damage Repair On Hardwood Floors

Written by customhardwood on January 2, 2021. Posted in Floor Repair.

Hardwood Floor Repair of Water Damage

Hardwood floor repair. Water damage on a beautiful hardwood floor can be one of the homeowner’s worst nightmares. Imagine coming home after a wonderful weekend get-away only to find that your dishwasher has leaked water all over the hardwoods in your kitchen. Or sometimes the water slowly sneaks in when you least expect it, like in the entryway of your home after a long season of rain. Whether it’s a small amount or a lot, water on hardwood floors is a bad mix. But don’t worry – it can be repaired. Hardwood floor with water damage will need to be repaired by replacing the affected boards.

Hardwood Floor Repair in Los Angeles

First off, it’s important to identify the source of the water damage and fix it completely. It would be pointless to repair the wood if you don’t seal the leak or fix the pipes from where the water is coming. Remove moisture from the floor if any is still present. If water sits on the floor long enough, the boards will lose their shape. After the floor is completely dry it should go back to being flat depending on how long the water has been laying on the floor.

Minor water damage can be a result of small leaks or standing water from a spill. It could leave you with hardwood floorboards that may be discolored and possibly swollen or cracked. To effectively remove moisture we recommend that you have a professional hardwood floor repair specialist assess the situation.

It’s important to hire an expert for hardwood floor repair any kind of damage, no matter how minor you think it is. There is always some kind of blending process that needs to be done so that the damaged area winds up looking the same as the original floor.

To repair this kind of damage, we would begin by sanding back the affected area starting with coarse sandpaper before moving back to a finer grit. Once the area has been sanded back and the stain edges are smooth, we treat the area with a wood sealant that matches the rest of the floor. After one coat of sealant, it may be necessary to send it back even more before adding another coat.

When a lot of moisture has been absorbed from a major leak, the most common result is that the wood expands and becomes wider. Unfortunately, one of two things will happen: the floorboards buckle or cup. In either case, you are left with serious damage and an uneven floor. If your floor is cupping you will need to sand and remove the finish. This step should only be done if the other sign, buckling is not evident. There may be some minor repairs on some loose areas required but altogether as long as the wood is completely dry you can pick up and re-finish your floor.

In more serious cases, the entire floor may need to be completely replaced. It is important to keep in mind that each water damage situation is unique and requires variations to the repair process. If your floor buckled, usually this is a bad sign. Buckling means drying methods have failed because water still exists. In most cases when your wood buckles it has completely unattached itself from the sub-floor. When this happens, it is better in many professionals’ opinion to let it go and start over with new flooring. There is a point when you have to decide whether you want to try and save your flooring or simply replace it. In certain situations, you could try to save it but there is no guarantee that other problems won’t creep up as you go along.

Once your floor is flat and moisture-free again, as long as no staining has taken place we should be able to screen, fill and re-coat to fix the floor. Although, if the floor has been stained, re-finishing may be necessary. If the entire floor has water damage, you most likely want to have it sanded and refinished to get back your wood floor’s natural beauty.

Having a hardwood floor greatly increase your home’s market value. It is therefore essential to observe proper maintenance of wood floors, most especially during long rainy days where humidity increases. Water-damaged hardwood floors are best repaired by professional Los Angeles hardwood flooring experts who have years of experience, are licensed and are knowledgeable on repairing water-damaged hardwood floors.

Need to schedule a free on-site estimate?

Call us today at: 323-799-9954

Schedule a FREE On-site Estimate

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