LESLIE: Now we’ve got Tom in Michigan on the line who is dealing with some fading floors. Tell us what’s going on.
TOM IN MICHIGAN: Well, hello. I have a rather large house and most of it is ¾-inch, solid-oak flooring, about the 2¾-inch-wide planks all laying together.
TOM: OK. Mm-hmm.
TOM IN MICHIGAN: You have the dining room, the kitchen and the living room all in line. There are wall – parts of walls between each room but you can see all the flooring all the way across.
TOM: OK.
TOM IN MICHIGAN: The flooring in the dining room, because of the large windows, has become faded compared to the adjacent rooms, being the kitchen and living room.
TOM: Right.
TOM IN MICHIGAN: And I’m trying to figure out how to treat it so I can match the existing color in the two adjacent rooms.
TOM: Right.
TOM IN MICHIGAN: Because if I said it, you understand the problem.
TOM: Yeah. It’s going to be somewhat different. Is it so dramatically different that you really need to take this step? Because, typically, the sun does a pretty good job of fading things reasonably evenly. And if you do take this step, you are – even if you happen to get a stain color that’s pretty darn close to what you have, it’s going to be obvious that one floor is a newer finish than the other floor.
TOM IN MICHIGAN: Exactly. The dining room has three large windows shining on it, whereas the kitchen only has one small window over the sink and the living room has a patio door with a full curtain on it.
TOM: Right. Right. Right, right.
TOM IN MICHIGAN: So, it is a noticeable difference between the three rooms.
TOM: Well, listen, it’s so much work to refinish a floor. Adding the additional room may not really be that complicated. Maybe you should just do it all at once.
TOM IN MICHIGAN: And believe it or not, these two rooms – hallways – go into other rooms. We’re talking 2,400 square foot of oak floor. To continue it …
TOM: Have you considered wall-to-wall carpet?
LESLIE: What about an area rug?
TOM: Exactly.
TOM IN MICHIGAN: Now, that’s actually one of the problems. When you pick up a rug, you’ll see how nice and dark it is underneath, not so much here on the perimeter.
TOM: Right. Right, right. Tom, I – frankly, I think you chalk this up to charm. You can control this if you refinish the floors but I don’t think you’re going to be able to do it selectively to match the fade of the sun. I just don’t think it’s physically possible for you to do that.
So I think you live with it or you decide – or you live with it until you can’t live with it anymore and then you just redo all of the floors. And when you redo all of the floors, the finishes today – you might want to think about using an exterior-grade polyurethane because they have more UV-protection in them than an interior polyurethane.
TOM IN MICHIGAN: Exactly.
TOM: And that will actually help control and keep that color. And by the way, a set of blinds doesn’t help – doesn’t hurt either.
TOM IN MICHIGAN: Well, thank you for your help.
TOM: You’re welcome, Tom. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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