Transition from Old Hardwood to New – Follow Up

Jamie sent in an email with a similar situation to Lisa’s problem with trying to transition from old hardwood to new. So let’s delve in a bit to this problem which can be very common to a slow process of remodeling ones home.
Q: I actually have this same issue. My dining room and kitchen have Golden Oak flooring and I want to replace my living room carpeting wtih hardwood as well. I’ve thought about going dark with the new floor, but am not convinced that this will look okay, do you have any pictures or examples?
Also, I was thinking about sanding down my existing floor and staining dark and then trying to match with that…do you think that would be possible? If I do refinish my existing flooring, is it difficult to stain it a darker color?
Thanks!
Jamie
A: For this transition, does it happen at a doorway or mid-span in a larger room? For instance, for sunk in living rooms with multiple flooring types in the sunk in room versus the living area. This can be important when it comes to how much easier it is to do this. Off hand I have no photos of something like this that is not at a doorway, which provokes my question partially.
I will say that with some careful work this can be done very well and it looks great. Think similar to a room with carpet which flows to a room with linoleum or hardwood, each room has a very different feel, but a simple transition pulls it together. The same effect can be accomplished with wood flooring and I generally suggest using a vastly different colored flooring to make it almost obvious. By not trying to blend the floors, it becomes apparent the difference is wanted and it seems to go over better in my experience.
Now, you can also refinish your current floor, but it would be very difficult to stain an old floor to match the color of a prefinished floor. The problem is that you will have very different sheens of finish over similar colored floors, which will make them look different. Now if you were to use a high quality unfinished product, sand down the original floor, then stain the entirety of your floor and refinish the entire floor at the same time. This is a bit of work, but it is your best bet to make the entire floor a uniform color and finish.
In the end here it is a big matter of what you want in your home. If having a uniform floor throughout your home is what you want, it can be done, but as I mentioned, it’s a lot of time and work. Now if having good looking floors which transition to other floors is something that you like, its just a matter of finding a floor you like and putting it in with proper transition pieces.