Q & A: Concerns When Tying Together New & Old Hardwood Floors

Hi Don,

Please can you tell me. We have original wood floors in our home, they are white oak dated 1959 when the house was built. We recently had the floors refinished and they are beautiful. We are considering knocking our kitchen wall to the hallway where the hardwood floor exists, and want to put a hardwood floor in the kitchen, we are trying to match the wood as closely as possible but don't know how to tie the 2 floors in together so they look as natural as possible. Please any help would be greatly appreciated.

Donna L.


Donna, you indicated you were happy with the refinishing work you got from your previous wood flooring contractor. I would suggest you contact them regarding this new project. Ask them if they feel confident matching (or at least closely replicating) the flooring in the rest of your home. Don’t be surprised if they tell you they cannot guarantee an exact match with your existing wood flooring. That is precisely what our company would say.

Hardwood flooring volumes, mill locations, milling practices, hardwood lumber and shipping systems have all changed substantially since 1959. Virtually every home got hardwood flooring until the mid 1960s. Hardwood flooring was milled and shipped from all over the eastern US (mostly from the Mississippi River east). There are hundreds of different oak species that grow in the US (not just red and white oak as many people think). Each oak species has its own individual characteristics, some of which accounts for all the different shades or hues that can be imparted when coated with one of the many different sealers and finishes available to floor finishers these days.

The degree and type of traffic your original floor endured can also make it difficult to match. Heavy traffic or unprotected wear as well as many types of water damage will often not sand out completely. Sunlight or strong UV light can unalterably bleach or yellow some species, while low lighting and time can sometimes unalterably darken others.

One of the most noticeable differences between old and new flooring boards could well be their average overall board lengths. In the 1950s wood flooring boards often ranged upward from 10 to 12 feet – sometimes reaching lengths of 14 feet or longer. Due in part to milling machinery but largely to shipping practices, average board lengths have gotten substantially shorter. Today, most long haul commodities are shipped via container (even by railroad) and must fit sideways in a cargo container lengthwise. This means the longest board must be under 7-1/2 feet. To accommodate longer lengths, specialty mills will ship their products lengthwise. This creates a lot of unused space and complicates handling. Either way, it causes such products to be harder to find and more expensive.

When our company takes on a project like yours (and we do quite often), we always insist on a good deal of flexibility with regard to quantity, color and grading of the flooring utilized to match to an existing floor. The first thing we do when matching to an existing floor is tear out a few boards from the existing. This will help us determine the grade, species and color of the original material and as it turns out is necessary for properly lacing into the existing flooring

Just knowing the original grade, species and color of the original floor does not guarantee a perfect match. But it is a good starting point. Then we must compare the sanded face of the original flooring boards to that currently available in a matching size.

Even this doesn’t always mean we will exactly match the new to the original flooring. We like to insist on going further by sanding sections of the original flooring prior to lacing in new material. Thus we can obtain a side-by-side comparison of new to existing by color, texture and grading.

For the most discriminating customers who persist on the closest possible match or where the new and the existing flooring come together at a focal point in unforgiving lighting, there is no substitute for painstakingly mixing and blending. Here the old and new are carefully and meticulously mixed together, then sanded flush to one another and finished with the proposed stain and/or finish. This is a technique our company uses for stain color determination on critical color harmonizing and is the only way blended areas can be fully acknowledged as the best possible match.

When all is said and done, the methodology utilized in lacing or tying two areas together will ultimately decide how good a job is done making the two floors one. This is as much art as a science – probably more so. Unfortunately, some of the biggest obstacles are out of the hands of the flooring restoration contractor. If the original floor was poorly installed, that is crooked to prevailing wall lines or allowed to migrate this way and that as the original installer completed the job, it can be an absolute bear to tie a new floor into it. One of the most difficult, if not nearly impossible tasks in the wood flooring trade is to make a new floor look good when tying it into a poorly installed existing one.

Quite often we find we must tell a client that it is better to pull a whole section of flooring or even the entire floor rather than lace into it in order to make the completed floor visibly appealing. Additionally, the time and labor involved in lacing can quickly expand a project’s budget. Blending several floors together is some of the most demanding work in the trade. It requires a conscientious contractor with many years of experience to pull it off.

I have an especially strong and personal appreciation for the art of lacing hardwood floors these days. The hardwood flooring that I installed in my home for the book “Hardwood Floors”, that I wrote more than 20 years ago, tied together the original wood flooring installed in the house’s bedrooms in the 1950s. When my wife and I remodeled our kitchen last year we decided to knock out the wall separating our kitchen from our dining room and living room. This required combining the wood floors from three areas to create one very spacious and open living space. The final product would put on display the junction of three sections old to new.

Due to the floor’s direct southern exposure and the sun’s strong reflection off our pond, bleaching was in strong evidence with our old floor’s patina. We recognized this bleaching would never match our new flooring and would require replacement. This meant removing over 60% of our living room floor and an extensive lace-in project. Further, due to changes in grading rules over the years, I saw the need to move up a full grade from the original #1 Common to Select and Better grade to effectively pull off the best blend.

My wife and I couldn’t be happier the way the rooms all work together as one. We couldn’t have done it without a near perfect flooring match. Best of all, even I cannot locate the seams of old and new flooring unless I get down on all fours – a position no one should be in when inspecting their wood floors.

I hope you find this information valuable. Please feel free to contact our office if you have further questions.

Thanks,

Don Bollinger