I recently met with several flooring contractors regarding our douglas fir floors. Some of them said that these floors do not take stains well and others said it was not a problem. Does any have any experience with this? Also, do you know what the natural color is? Currently they are all painted over.
Thanks for your replies.
Ryan
The natural color is, well, natural for Douglas Fir. Go to Home Depot and find some fir and take a peek. Similar to pine.
It does not take some stain well. You can use a pre-stain conditioner to avoid getting too blotchy. A lot depends on what you want as the final product. Anything would look better than paint, IMO. You can always put a new wood floor over top of it. Ed snipped-for-privacy@snet.net
Ryan spaketh...
try google for several hundred more
Fir can be stained, but better results may come from using a dye or toning the wood
If the floor is more than 50 or so years old, it would probably be worth your while to strip it. It's probably quite nice looking wood.
Much plywood is made from doug fir. You can get an idea of the color from that. Kind of redish.
Doug fir looks very nice as a floor. It is very strong, but it is not tough like oak (meaning it will take a lot of stress without breaking, but it will scratch and dent. So you would do well to always keep a very tough finish on it.
I don't know what color you want to stain it, but I wouldn't do it. I can't think of any stain that would improve it. It's a nice, lively color.
Peter
Doug fir heartwood has a reddish cast, the sapwood is white. Both woods darken with age.
I don't know what "do not take stains well" means. What color do you want the wood? If you want it uniform, dream on. If you just want to accentuate the grain, stain away. The traditional finish for a fir floor is several coats of boiled linseed oil, sanding the grain flat between coats, and a layer of paste floor wax. When you get to the point that a coat of wax won't hide the traffic patterns in the floor, just strip the wax off with ammonia, run a floor sander over it to remove ground-in dirt, and oil it again.
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