Water base poly or oil based? Satin finish or matte?

@lucillenova I loved the Bona HD Traffic Satin for our top coat. Wears like iron. I would ask to see a sample of matte or better yet, see a whole floor in it. I have not heard great things about matte - shows every little footprint, water drop, etc. Though that ciould vary by manufacturer.

This is all so helpful! Does anyone have photos of the gray & jacobean mixture thats referenced?

Hi all! I’m so happy I found this thread and that like me, everyone is battling their cherry wood floors.

I’m a first time home buyer and looking for advice on how to tackle my cherry wood flooring! Is refinishing/staining darker the way to go? Is there any chance of lightening these floors or would I have to go the route of bleaching (this sounds scary)? My dream would be French oak but I suspect that I can only get that by ripping out the original flooring which at the same time seems sacrilegious to do.

PS I am also planning on changing the cabinetry/counters to white which will help me live with the cherry flooring for a bit.

Any advice would be much appreciated :)

Mia S- I actually find that your cherry floors look really good with your kitchen. But I am not a professional. Congratulations on the new home!

It's interesting this thread pings me every now and then—when we first moved in and commented years ago I was not a fan of our Brazilian cherry floors and really would have preferred to replace it with white oak. Instead, we've slowly replaced all our furniture with lighter and medium tones, brought in lots of greenery, modernized the window dressings with natural linens, and added some light rugs and light grey upholstery. Now, I don't even notice it.

@heathall do you have any photos? Battling with the same thing. Keep it and suck it up or do the spend to modify. I feel if the rest of the home has a modern feel maybe you ignore it: thanks

Pics

@Emma Kinney I think the floors in your open living room look great with the wall color and will totally work with some furniture/rugs in the space. I don't know if the pale yellow complements it as well. You can make the stairs a little less in-your-face by painting the risers the white color of your trim work.

@Emma Kinney . I would refinish like I did and put a matte or satin finish. Please look down the thread and see my pictures. Afterword make sure you have window film (uv screening) so the floors stay the same color. It wil icost so much less and your house is really pretty already. The shiny finish is outdated, but the floors are beautiful . Trends come and go .

@sookmomof4 I can’t find your pics, sorry! So you would recommend refinish and stain?

https://www.houzz.com/user/emma-belcher37 I would sand and if you like stain them, but it makes them much darker and that shows lots of dust and dirt. If you hit command F on your computer and put in Sook-you should find where the pics are. I think grayer floors and dark floors have had their hey day! My floors came out more chocolate than red. And we love them!

Hello! These are our floors at our new home and I would love thoughts on whether we need to fully refinish/sand down, or if just adding a stain/varnish on top would acheive a darker brown color that we are seeking? We have received quotes from $9-12 grand for the job (1,700 sq ft+25 stairs). I have also heard that there is no way to fully achieve the brown, which I am fine with some red peering through, just don't want it to look warped in any way.

Any advice is appreciated!

@georgel79 you will need to fully refinish/sand down if you want to the floors stained brown. We had our cherry (Jatoba, brazilian cherry) floors refinished in a brown mahogany stain and the red does not come through (it is a dark stain). We are very happy with our "new" floor.

love this thread! Just bought a new home. i hate the cherry, its everywhere, too much to get rid of. I’m painting cabinets in kitchen and living room white, getting white counters. The cherry boarders the carpet and is in the ceiling beams, door, and stair rail. I want to refinish the floor. Should i just do a clear matte finish? Will any stain help? Ideas?

I would not do a matte finish (or at least would see it in person somethwree before you commit). I highly recomend Bona Traffic HD Satin. Matte look but still easy care.

Are you painting cabinetry either way? It's beautiful and so are your beams.

If you are thinking of staining your floor, maybe choose something complementary to your cabinets and do that first to see if you can avoid the expense and smell (been there, done that). Then just add the updatede counters. We stained in Duraseal Ebony (with waterpopping) and love the result.

I do plan to paint the cabinets eirher way (they are beautiful, but not my personal taste) but I appreciate the suggestion on the satin finish.

Hello! Thank you so much for the feedback. We are not moving into our property for a week after the job, and our company is suggesting an alcohol-based vs. water based stain, Synteko for the refinish. Any concerns here? My read is that it saves some money, it smells but that isnt as much of a concern for us since it will be some time before we formally move in, but doesn't change anything re: the quality of the end result. Any insight?

OP here, glad to see this discussion is still going strong 8 years later and has helped many!

@bubbles0208 8 YEARS!?!?!?! That's amazing, I love it!

I sanded my engineered cherry wood floors down and just added a clear matte protective coat. im not crazy abou them but atleast they dont look as red and look like real hardwood floors. eventually ill probably go with laminite i want natural light floors

I'm really sorry to be a kill-joy, bur we sanded and refinished out hardwood cherry floors and they were lighter at first but within a year maybe 2 at most they were back to the original color :(

https://www.houzz.com/user/sha-zingg, We put UV window film on our windows and one year later our floors are the same color. Either you need to close curtains or film your windows (which is more expensive but looks awesome) to keep the color.

I installed Brazilian cherry hardwood 20 years ago into a 2nd home at a ski resort, because I felt it best matched the kitchen cabinetry and the ubiquotous window trim/baseboards/doors colour (both fir).

Unfortunately a new dishwasher was not installed properly and the water damage requires replacement. Insurance will cover it (though instead of 6-12' boards, only a 1-12' board was found which I fear will make an even choppier look).

My other option is to replace with Engineereed hardwood, and add underfloor heating with the budget difference.

But since I had a hard time finding a good colour 20yrs ago so thought I would crowdsource some opinions! Any thoughts what colour might match? fyi- I prefer modern/clean vs dark/distressed/knotty. The place is mainly used in winter and doesn't get a lot of sun. I usually have a rug under the couch - moved to try to dry out the buckled floor)

Here are some photos of the space. Excuse them pls - they are sourced from random shots on my camera roll (ie my daughter trying on her grandmother's dress from the 80s that shows that trim colour well)

Hi Boomer, I too had a dishwasher leak that lead to what looked like severe damage to the flooring - it was all wavy and cupped. Before ripping up the adjacent kitchen cabinets and flooring, we brought in fans and dried it out. I seem to remember it took a few weeks, but the flooring returned back to close to original fit, with the exception of some cupping, which was easily sanded out. After refinishing / ebony staining, the floor looked like new. So happy we never ripped it up. Insurance covered refinishing the entire floor as that was the only way to get it all matching. If some of yours is too damaged to refinish, you can consider replacing just the parts you need to and simply avoid using the real short boards / place them under the dishwasher. The shorts won't account for much of the sqft. The nice thing about staining is it unifies the color so it won't at all look 'choppy', even with some shorts. It is beautiful wood you have, one of the hardest you can get, and IMHO seems a shame to rip it out and replace with an inferior product. A dark brown will match the brown in your counter tops too, and make that pink pop even more than it already does...

Getting ready to refinish our Brazillian Mesquite floors. Sharing sample stains I did yesterday. Still deciding what to do at this point. Second picture shows the bleached floor after an hour and it still looks like that this morning. I'm leaning towards Roanoke but still researching. I had the pickled oak, weathered oak and provincial around from other projects so I decided to test them. The pickled oak produced the white specs that were mentioned in this thread.

Hard choice to make. For what it's worth, if you want to retain some of the red (making it look more like mahogany), I'd go for the Roanoke or Espresso. Ebony will likely end up very dark after you apply a poly/water coat. Mocha looks pretty similar to Ebony, maybe a bit lighter? Weathered Oak, Pickled Oak, and Provincial don't look like they're doing much to tone down the redness, and in some cases make it look more pronounced.

Kind of depends on what your goal is... Are you trying to match other cabinetry or trim in your house? Did you do water popping? We were pleased with ebony. Do you like the bleached option? That seems sort of like the honey oak everyone is always trying to get rid of. Provincial and espresso seem like they are more brown in tone.

Still testing and sharing because there doesn't seem to be lots of examples out there. My goal is to tone down the red and get a lighter brown since dark floors show dust easily. I found a video where a homeowner used Varathane Aged Wheat (has green undertones) to tone down the red and I'm testing that now. I did different strengths diluting it down with mineral spirits. I also tested layering stains on top to even out the color variations in my floor. I also added a water based matte top coat and a satin that I had on hand to see the difference once protected. As of now I like the 1/3 formula and want to test that some more with provincial layered on top.

I agree with many out there that there is not a lot of information on how to work with Brazilian cherry floors. Especially if you want to go lighter! My contractor convinced me to keep my floors versus replacing them because it would be a lot more expensive and plus Brazilian cherry is an expensive exotic hardwood. After a lot of heartache, blood sweat and tears and working with my very patient Contractor, we got very close to what I wanted! It was NOT easy and my newer cherry floors upstairs worked out easier than my older Brazilian cherry downstairs:

Before:

[second post bc I couldn’t post more pics]

AFTER:
Bleaching twice/three times in some areas, 25% weathered oak/75% Simply white and Nordic Seal

It looks very pretty this way.

Can you describe the process…what they did and products used?

Sorry missed the caption of bleaching 2x3 time … looks great.

So worth your blood sweat and tears!!!
Do you by any chance have a pictures of the products you used?

I absolutely LOVE the way your floors turned out xcljx. It is the look I am going for with my Brazillian cherry floors. Using this process, from sanding to finish, how many steps does it take to accomplish this look and how smelly was it? Will I have to move out?

Also, I have to say that I’m concerned about doing this process because my contractor feels that over time, the wood will pull the reds and oranges out again. I know you just recently had this done. Is there anyone out there who also used this process and can provide feedback regarding my concern? Reds/oranges returning over time? Thank you!

I absolutely LOVE how your floors turned out xcljx! It is exactly the look I am going for with my Brazillian cherry floors. How many steps did it take to achieve this look from sanding to finish? Also, was it smelly… will my family have to move out for a few days?

As much as I love it, I am a bit concerned about spending the money to do this, as my contractor has told me that over time the reds and oranges will pull through again. Has anyone used this same process perhaps years ago who can provide feedback as to whether this will happen? Reds and oranges showing up again? Thank you!

I too just refinished my brazilian cherry floors. We chose Ebony stain and i love the color. it took out a lot of the red but still shows the pretty grain of the wood. HOWEVER the floors now scratch so easily and look worse than they did before after only one week past the 2 week cure period (versus 15 years that we had the floors previously!!!). Im devastated after all the money and effort. did anyone have this experience with Brazilian cherry being refinished? is there something different about that wood that causes it to be super susceptible to scratches? the contractor said he could do the process again with Bona Travfic which ”might” help.

@sheiladelmonte - it took many steps, sanding at least 2, 3 times because brazilian cherry and its coating was very hard and difficult to remove, then bleaching, drying, bleaching again, drying. I will say it was extremely dusty and smelly, yes. You'd most certainly would have to move out. The fumes went into basement too.

@13358ludlow I don't have the pictures of the products used, unfortunately. They used Minwax and Nordic Seal.

@boburban - the process is under the "after" caption. Sanding more than once, bleaching 2/3 times, staining and sealing with Nordic Seal. and the main floor has to be resanded after staining because it was so orange so a slightly different method was used but it worked out!

@Stefanie You can look back at my posts - the floors have held up remarkable well (very scratch resistant) and free of red tones (Duraseal ebony with water popping and Bona HD Traffic Satin finish) - house with kids and a dog. The wood should not be any softer post staining so I gather it is just the finish that is scratching, so presumably was the products / way applied that was inadequate. Only scratching we had was from wood dining room chairs where the protective felt pads came off.

In my experience, I have stripped and not re-stain. Go with a clear coat. Tie in this new color elsewhere in the room or surrounding room. Mantle? Beams? Looks more intentional that way 

@jingletim thank you! thats really helpful to know. hopefully the bona traffic will do the trick for us too.

@sheiladelmonte I definitely had to move out. the amount of dust was incredible and reached rooms where we didnt even have work done. the fumes were really bad and took several days to air out. the dust was pink because of the red floors! i definitely recommend making sure your contractor uses drop cloths, sheeting over walls, and closes your vents if possible. also note that there is a 2 week cure period after they apply the poly before it fully hardens, during which time the floors are very susceptible to scratching.

Thank you all for your comments. It’s such a huge undertaking and cost. I appreciate your feedback.

Following 😊

@Kristy Johnson may I ask what stain did you decide to go with and would you post a photo. I am undecided what to do with cherry brazilian floors.

Sandra there are many videos on YouTube that illustrates how the cherry floors have to be sanded, bleached and then sealed. It's very $$$ and maybe 1 in 10 or 20 flooring contractors have the skill to do this so be CAREFUL.

I have 20 year old Brazilian cherry floors that we just sanded. I actually posted on this thread about 10 years ago last time we refinished. At that point, we went dark. Now it’s time again to do this. We r between going darker like last time vs leaving them natural w bona HD. We live in Florida. The wood floor contractor said that bona HD has a very good UV protection that should make it so they don’t change color. So they shouldn’t turn darker or redder? Is that accurate? We’ve sanded and stained a couple times w oil and they always seem to get darker/redder. But he says this won’t happen w Bona HD. In the pics, we are leaning towards the least dark stain #2 or going the natural route. But concerned the natural is too orange in my house or might turn darker/redder over time?