oh boy.. reading all these problems w/ maple flooring giving me

10 years ago

a stomach ache..

We just bought a house that is still in process of being remodeled by seller. There are maple floors everywhere on first floor except kitchen. She is planning on installing them in kitchen also and doing a provincial (darker) stain.

Sounds like this doesn't always work out so well.

I guess I need to communicate to her as to whether she is aware of issues w/ staining maple.. the wood is origin. from 1940/50's?

Is it really possible to get a decent look from this water popping?

Is this a process a regular floor guy would know how to do?

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Comments (4)

gregmills_gw
10 years ago
Staining maple can look really nice if done right. But to keep in mind it doesnt look like other woods that are stained. Like red oak for instance. Water popping is a pretty standard procedure for a pro.

If your buying the house and the current owner is doing the remod shouldnt you have a say in something as big as pickking the color for your floor?
glennsfc
10 years ago
Sounds to me like this is a 'flip' house. An inexperienced floor person may not know how to stain maple and get an acceptable result.
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User
10 years ago
I'd be a helluva lot more concerned about the other things the flipper was doing. At least with ugly floors, the problem is cosmetic. With something stupid and cheaply done like plumbing, or electrical, there's a lot more chances for issues that are health and safety oriented.
User
10 years ago
Water popping is a fairly common practice. It will make Maple more uniform but not like an open-grain wood. It will not eliminate all the splotchiness in a stained Maple floor.
I'd frankly be more concerned that they're going to pick a color that you don't like, or one that is impractical (ie hard to keep up). As hollysprings points out, you can change the color. That's one of the bigger selling points of wood flooring.
Is it absolutely necessary to finish the floors before the sale? Can you negotiate a deal to buy the house with unfinished floors, with a credit applied to the purchase price?
Some finishers buff the floor before applying the stain. To me that defeats the purpose of water popping. To combat the "fuzziness" caused by water popping, we apply three coats of oil poly at a rate of about 400'/gallon. We sometimes add UP TO 8 ounces of stain per gallon of poly to the first two coats to add uniformity and deepen the color. The top coat would be clear. They should sand very lightly after the first poly to avoid sanding through the color, then a little more aggressively after the second coat so the finished product is nice and smooth.
For clients on a budget, we have buffed with a soft nylon pad between the stain and poly to smooth it out, then applied two poly coats. In a kitchen I would do three coats.

I am not a fan of wood floors in kitchens but there are pros and cons. I only sell wood floors but I have 16" multi-color slate in my kitchen. Maybe when it's time to jackhammer up that slate I'll be wishing I'd put in wood!