Room with a lighter-coloured timber floor staining

Whether you’re renovating your home or restoring it from damage, timber floor staining your home can give your flooring a much-needed update,  highlighting the beauty of the wood and further elevating your space.

However, when done with unskilled hands, your stain can be quite far from what you envisioned it to be. This misstep effectively throws your valuable time, money, and energy down the drain.

At Croydon Floors, we understand this frustration. Staining is the most risk-prone part of refinishing hardwood flooring and should be approached with an expert’s insights to get the result you want.

This is why we have taken the liberty of creating a helpful guide explaining the concept of staining as well as its types to help you choose one based on your needs and personal taste.

 

What is timber floor staining?

Staining refers to the process of applying a finish after sanding that penetrates your wood floor deeper than varnish, or polyurethane to improve its appearance– particularly improving its natural grain, colour, and texture as well as applying a layer of protection. 

The timber floor staining you’ll use heavily depends on your flooring’s wood species, your desired colour, and the level of protection you want. Commonly used stains include oil-based stains, water-based stains, gel stains, and dye stains.

Here are two major reasons why you should get one for your hardwood floor:

 

Your floor shows signs of damage

One of the many problems our customers regularly call us to fix is water damage.

Thanks to Melbourne’s abundant waterways, most suburbs in the Southbank area are prone to flash floods. If you live close to this area, expect some signs of regular water damage on your timber flooring.

While the sensible option is to replace the damaged wood, most homeowners tend to save money by resanding the floors and staining them with a darker colour to cover up the waterlogged areas.

Pro tip: We at Croydon Floors typically use oil-based stains for most of our work with clients that have water damage. 

These stains not only produce deep colours to hide the water damage, but they also penetrate better than most stains which makes them perfect for protection against long-time wear and tear

However, while dark stains cover up water damage, they also highlight underlying scratches since the wood is lighter than the stain. If you’re bothered by the bruises, we recommend applying a lighter-coloured stain instead.

 

You’re confused about what stain colour you want

If your flooring is made up of lower-quality wood like oak, ash, or hickory, you can upgrade it without spending too much by staining it. Once you stain your floors and see how your space looks more elegant and classy than before, you can never look back.

But how do you choose which stain is best? It’s easy.

When choosing the stain colour, you need to consider the size, walls, and furniture of your house – and of course your taste – so that the flooring complements them.

If you have a small house with not much room for lighting and want the space to feel bigger than it should, a lighter-coloured stain can help with that. Lighter-coloured stains are also perfect if you have dark walls or furniture to create contrast.

Conversely, darker stains are perfect for large homes with high ceilings since they bring in a lot of light.

 

Enjoy an even better home with Croydon Floors

Timber floor staining can add some much-needed appeal to improve your home.

However, while it’s tempting to go down the DIY route and save costs, you still have to prepare, treat, and sand the wood before you even apply the first coat. 

Plus, there’s no guarantee that it’ll look good. Once the stain dries and it’s not quite as you envisioned, you’ll have to re-sand the entire flooring and start over again, which is expensive and time-consuming.

In this case, it’s better to hire a professional to do it for you, like Croydon Floor Services.

With our proven track record of high-quality craftsmanship since 1982, customers from Melbourne CBD all the way to Mornington come to us to provide them with quality floor installation services tailored to their tastes.

If you need timber floors, parquetry flooring, cork flooring installations or polishing, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us to get a quote.