How we do wood floor finishes

Various options are available for colouring and finishing your floor, so it matches your requirements:

Colouring

We can stain your floor to your exact requirement, before coating it with the finish of your choice. Staining a floor allows you to do things with the décor of your room that would not have been possible before. Ask to see some of our wide choice of stains. We will also advise on the choice of stains as some species of wood take stain better than others and also some colours might look good today but date very quickly.

Finishing

Your floors will be finished with either a water-based polyurethane lacquer or a hardwax oil. All the products that we use are of the highest quality, including finishes from Bona, Blanchon, Strongseal, Osmo, and Buzz.

What’s the difference between Lacquer and Hardwax oil?

Lacquer

A lacquer forms a plastic skin over the floor which makes it very hygienic, as it is a wipe clean finish. You can have a choice of sheen levels, matt, silkmatt, or gloss. Lacquers do not change the colour of the floor much, and therefore help to preserve the lighter ‘just sanded’ look. Very suitable for all rooms in the house, and gives the ‘minimalist’ look which is popular. Can be applied with a high-gloss finish, very suitable for dark exotic woods, or a matt finish, very suitable for pine floorboards, or a silkmatt finish, to show off your parquet to perfection.

Hardwax Oil

Hardwax oils are, as the name suggests, a mixture of wax and oil. They sink into the wooden floor and go hard in the top layer of the wood, reinforcing it rather than forming a skin over it. Hardwax oils give the wood a vey natural matt look, they also help to emphasise the grain of the wood and make the colour ‘warmer’. This gives a very traditional look and helps the renovated floor to fit in if you have an older house. Not as good as a lacquer for areas which are likely to get wet a lot, i.e. kitchens and dining rooms. However, if you do scratch an oiled floor it is possible to ‘patch repair’ it which is a great advantage.