So I'm getting ready to have to sand the flooring in our downstairs bathroom for the 3rd time because I can't match the transition from the hallway into the bathroom.

Backstory: Replaced toilet in bathroom and decided to fix some of the flooring while in there that had gaps between boards or discoloration. Replaced boards, sanded everything in the room flat

1: First issue was didn't sand close enough to the wall, and expected the 'orange tint' of the original poly on the floor to match the clear oil poly I was putting down because I heard the oil poly has an 'amber tint'. Nope...it looked like I was looking at natural wood floor w/ orange ring close to the wall. Not to mention the floor prep was crap and you could see all the sanding marks. Do over...

2. Sanded off all that stuff down to bare maple all the way around the room up to 240 grit. Vac'd & cleaned the entire room, then wiped floor off with paint thinner (since I didn't have mineral spirits) for final cleaning. Tried using amber tinted shellac this time around and it turned a much brighter orange. The drier it got, the oranger it got. Sanding didn't help, and in fact left streaks of gloss in sections and a 'closer' match where there was no gloss. Here's the disappointing results from this time:




How can I match our current floors with a fresh and final coat of poly so I can get my bathroom back?!

 

Only comment I can make, use some of your scrap wood to test the colors, got to be a lot easier than re-doing the floors every time!

 

Yeah, there isnt much constructive to say.

I'm constantly baffled by things like this. If it doesnt match on a small sample area, why keep going and do the entire room? If the small area doesnt match, doing more isnt going to make it look different/better.

The only solution is to strip that finish off and completely start over. If you are trying to match what's in the foreground, it looks like a clear finish. And you obviously need to sand edges better before you even start finishing. Water based poly does not amber. Oil poly has an amber tint that changes with age, and there is no good way to match it exactly unless you try to stain the wood... which may look good initially but is not a good idea because it will age differently.

 

It kind of looks like a waterbased finish was used on the existing flooring. Water based polys do little to change the color of the wood. Oil base poly deepens the colors naturally in the wood.

 

How much of that flooring in the photo is new/replaced? And what did you replace it with? Maple?

 

I tried the water based poly, but it left the maple looking way, way too white-ish in color. Like exactly the same as the naked wood, which makes sense since I think that's what water based poly is supposed to do. I covered that with 2 coats of oil based poly, but there was still too much of a difference between the orange/amber color of the flooring just outside the bathroom. I tried a test board before hand, and the closest I could get was the 1 coat of amber shellac, but the weird thing with that is as it dried it seemed to get more and more orange - too deep to even get close to matching.

So I've got an interesting perspective, which I didn't even notice until I tried to compare the sample board w/ various finishes to the existing wood flooring. The lighter color is an area of the floor where a rug has been for years and years. The darker, 'orange-ier' side is what was exposed to ambient sunlight:


My best guess is it's covered w/ an oil poly and has simply ambered over time. I thought it was interesting that the more sunlight it got, the more it ambered. As far as the sample board, I'll let you guys judge which you think most closely matches the current floor: