How to finish wood floors to match old and new wood

We are renovating the kitchen in our new (old) house, and need some advice on finishing the floors. We kept the original douglas fir that was covering most of the kitchen, but had to replace a portion of it. It looks a lot better than before, but the colors still don't match. Does anyone have advice on the best way to finish them? We are thinking that maybe staining the floor a bit darker will bring them closer together?

***Please don't comment on the way that we replaced the wood. We understand that it would have looked better if we replaced the entire kitchen, or if we staggered the new and old wood, but we decided to go with this option instead.

Thank you!
Jenny

 

What have you done to the new wood? If the new wood is unfinished you might get pretty close with just an oil base poly - test on some scrap flooring first!

 

the wood is unfinished. we sanded over both to smooth the seams and prepare for the poly. we mopped with water to see what it might look like with poly, and the old wood was a good shade or two darker than the new stuff.

 

Waterbased poly won't change the look of the wood much other than give it a sheen. Oil base polys tend to deepen the color some and ambers as it ages. Was the old wood sanded down to bare wood or just sanded smooth? What type of sander was used?

As I mentioned before, take some scrap flooring and sample finishes on it to fine tune the look you need.

 

we used a drum sander to sand it down to bare wood. we will definitely try out a few finished on scrap wood, thanks!

 

I assume you used the drum sander on the entire floor and got it all down to bare wood. If that's the case poly alone probably isn't enough to get the colors right. It will probably take a light stain over just the new wood to get it closer to the look of the old wood. Again the more you can experiment on scrap wood the better.