Whitening Red Oak - Help

Aug 18, 2004 6 Replies
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We are renovating our home and put in some nice oak hardwood flooring. The flooring is quite white (I understand that 'red oak' can often be quite white) with a neutral finish (no noticeable stain tint). We decided to go with Oak doors and trim to match. The trim I used to test my finishing (a 'neutral' oak stain/sealer) matched fine. When I started finishing the doors, however, I noticed that the doors where much more red in color than the trim and floors. With the stain applied, it ended up more golden oak look that I had anticipated, and thus didn't match the floors as anticipated. I do not claim to be a finishing pro, and am looking for a way to 'whiten' red oak. I have actually tried some household bleach, which seems to somewhat do the trick. (sounds crazy, I know!) The local paint stores I have talked to didn't seem to know too much about the issue.



Any help would be greatly appreciated.



Edgar ( snipped-for-privacy@sasktel.net) (remove .nospam)


I bought a bleach at HD that whitens oak. It might be a little pricy for a whold floor though.

There are wood bleaches and it is surprising the paint stores didn't carry them. Generally they come in two varieties, oxalic acid and a two part bleach, made by combining sodium hydroxide and hydrogen peroxide solutions right befor use.

If the household bleach does the job I suggest sticking with it.

Hello, It sounds to me like you have a water based finish on the floors and are using oil on the other. Is this right? Jana

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com (Jana) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com:

My thought as well. Water base finish without an oil sealer will 'wash-out' over the years. I don't think its attractive and have reverted to using an oil sealer before applying water finish.

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