Al Havner & Sons Hardwood Flooring offer a wide range of Hardwood Floor Installation and Refinishing Services across Ypsilanti, Ypsilanti Charter Twp, Ann Arbor, Canton, Novi, Livonia, Warren, Sterling Heights, Troy, Auburn Hills, Ferndale, Berkley, Royal Oak, Farmington, Farmington Hills, Southfield, Madison Heights, Birmingham, West Bloomfield Township, West Bloomfield, Bloomfield Hills, Wixom, South Lyon, Rochester, Rochester Hills, Grosse Pointe, Grosse Pointe Woods, Grosse Pointe Shores, Dearborn Heights, Dearborn, Detroit, Bloomfield Township, Northville, Beverly Hills, Grosse Pointe Park, Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan.
A floor can be stained any color under the sun if you have enough money. My very first experience with a nutty decorator was back in the late 1980's when she told me she wanted a taupe beige color on a customer's floor. First of all, I had no clue what taupe was at the time, but hey, we got it done. Two days of mixing stains, pigments, and paints and several hundreds of dollars later she was a happy camper.
What Hardwoods Stain Best?
Most woods take stains very nicely, some others do not. Oak takes stain better than anything, with ash and hickory do as well. If you're wanting a Pine, Fir or Maple floor stained, were in for a very long and costly relationship. Woods like Maple, Pine, and Fir blotch very badly when you try to stain them, no matter how many coats of conditioner you put on them.
We have a method for doing this that we are not going to share with anyone. It's a very time consuming, very expensive to have done and takes a minimum of 6 coats of stain and finish to complete. We don't like to do it but you're the customer and what ever you want. Who am I to say no.
What Hardwoods Stain Worst?
Staining natural colored woods like American Walnut, Brazilian Cherry, and Brazilian Walnut, (along with other exotics) is a crime but we have been asked to do it several times. As long as you're willing to sign a waiver we're willing to do handle the job. Some of the exotics are oily that create some serious adhesion problems if they are stained.
If you're really looking to ruin your floor try one of the pastel colors; white pickled floor, pink, blue, green ect. They usually look really cool for about six months to a year and will cost you about triple what a normal stain job would cost.
Cool & Trendy Colors
There are some really neat ways to color your floors these days. We have some very good hard wax finishes and a few different oils that produce some really awesome colors. These oils and waxes are very easy to maintain, and best yet they are 100% VOC free for the tree hugger in you. These are my favorite stains and finishes, but I do not push them. Do your due diligence and decide for yourself. Personally I think these products will be the norm one day.
My choice of oil base stain is and always will be Duraseal, made by Minwax exclusively for floors. If you would like me to use something your baby sitters dad's uncle used on his windows, get him over to use it. I won't use anything else. Been there, done that; it probably will not work.
To apply, we do it the old fashioned way on our knees, wiping stain on and wiping off the excess. Hire guys who buff their stains on and you're short changing yourself.
We will not show you a color chip or a printed color chart to choose your stain color. You must be there the day we start sanding and we will sand up a large spot on the floor; exactly the way we are going to finish sand and put colors down on the floor (shown right). If you're going to be on vacation while we're working in your home, we will have to make prior arrangements for us to put down some samples for you before you leave out of town.
Dark Stain Is The Rage Today!
Dark, dark, and darker colors are in nowadays. When finished they are very hard to keep looking clean, as they highlight every little dust bunny. To achieve some of these very dark colors there is a process called water popping where we achieve a darker color than it would normally look right out of the can on a sanded surface. Water popping lifts and opens the grain of the wood where it will accept more stain. Hence a darker color. Water popping is an added step in the process and will cost a bit more for us to do this.
Spot Staining Different Rooms - Worn Out Areas
Lets say your kitchen is worn out and the rest of your house still looks fine and you're looking for someone to come in and just do the kitchen. Easier said than done. Finishes change colors with age with oil base more than water base making it almost impossible to get an exact match using the same color two years later.
Joe Blow Does The Work
Lets say Joe Blow from Splash and Dash flooring comes in and sands and stains your floor with a chestnut stain. A few years later you want another room stained and you can't find Joe Blow from Splash and Dash. Then you call me in sand to do the same. It is possible they can look different because different sanding procedures can produce differences in stain color. These are just a few things we have working against us when trying to match colors. It would be nice if we could wave a wand, click our heels and say twin pines and everything matches, but were not magicians, just floor guys.
Antique Brown
Cherry
Chesnut
Coffee Brown
Colonial Maple
Country White
Early American
English Chestnut
Ebony
Fruitwood
Golden Brown
Golden Oak
Golden Pecan
Gunstock
Jacobean
Medium Brown
Mesquite Red
Red Mahogany
Provincial
Nutmeg
Neutral
Rosewood
Royal Mahogany
Sedona Red
Special Walnut
Spice Brown
