Flooring Fiasco!

A absolutely gorgeous unseasonably warm day started with me whipping up a little something and it's not a chocolate smoothy. I blended up some floor stain in our blender per the instructions and was happy that I still had

our crummy black and decker blender so I could do two batches at the same time 

and not run short in the middle of the job

 (which I did and had to stop and make some more afterall so they were wrong with their calculations).

The website said that 1 lb of dark stains and paints covers 800 square feet so I mixed

up half a pound since our living and dining room were well under 400 square feet.

Then I scooped off the foam

Looks good enough to drink doesn't it?

Basically I started on the rooms with a sponge stain applicator attached to a paint pole and 

started at the top of one room and ended up at the end of the other room running in the direction of the floor boards.

I didn't realize the work I had cutout for me and wiping the water based stain off in time before it set in proved to be quite a task. Since Todd does all the tough and talented part of reno's I always do the finishes like paint and floors etc but this time I needed his help.

So two disasters occurred, one is I could not believe how red the floor was and two I hated how dark it was, not the look I was going for at all!

The day before I had stained and then varathaned this group of sample boards twice as a test pilot, of course I did wipe the stain off a little faster but as you can see it is just as dark as the one coat I put on. 

I didn't realize until later when Todd said suggested that I should have stopped when I realized it was wrong but I thought that it would be too difficult to remove as I thought that water based stain soaks into the wood more.

Dang, I should have stopped.

So here is the colour of the floor I wanted on the single board that I had previously tested a while back and did only one coat. 

 At this point I was trying to stay calm and then Todd suggested he could go over it with the sander and 120 grit paper to see if it lighten it up.

So he did, bless his heart and it certainly lightened up enough for me 

BUTTTT!

it still looks too red.

and it doesn't have the right tone for my fabrics

and it is most certainly wrong for the kitchen granite and backsplash tones. 

The colour is called Provincial Walnut and doesn't look anything like their sample on the internet which is the bottom colour just to the right of the blue. It's like I got a cross between the top left and the bottom right colour. I know what I asked for when the absent business owner's father mixed it up but he didn't write anything on the little paper bags he put it in nor was there a name on the bill when I finally checked it so how am I too know what I got afterall?

So what do you think when you see this picture of provincial walnut below and the colour of our floor?

Yes, with a lot more sanding and labour, Todd can get the stain off I'm hoping but do you think that I should really raise it with Homestead House who mixed the stain, tell them I want my money back?

They were closed today and so I have left a message and emailed her pictures but I am back to work tomorrow so this saga will continue probably well into next weekend which is so very disappointing as I had hoped we would have finished at least these two rooms by the end of this weekend.

Put the frustrating colour and amount calculation aside I think that this product is amazing. It is easy to mix up and apply. There were absolutely no fumes to deal with and if the colour had have been right I would have been applying my first coat of water based poly within 20 minutes of staining and after a light sanding.  I have used oil paints and stains in the past and the fumes just about kills me so if there is anyway to avoid it I will, but not if it doesn't give me the look I want in the end.