Refinishing hard wood floors w/ stains

does anyone have advice for lightening black stains in hardwood floors?
any chemicals that is known to work?
Or any useful websites that have examples of before and after type pics.?

May or may not be helpful, but I've seen a product out there that is designed to, in my understanding, slowly stip the finish off antiques and such. I don't know if it only works on laquers or if it will work on stains as well. I'm sorry, I don't even know the name, but I have seen the product at the local antique store and I am almost certain it was in a yellowish colored can. Similar to what you'd get buying accetone. Another thought is calling someone like House of Antique Hardware or Van Dykes Restoration Hardware, they might be able to stear you in a good direction. After all they specialize in helping people restore old houses and antiques, your floor may or may not be one, but same principle. Good luck and hope thi helps a little....

If you're up for sanding the floors, you might be able to get it in pretty good condition.

When we moved in, the hardwood floors in the family room were under old glued down carpeting, so stained even black in some areas, I thought that there was no way we would ever get this to look good. I rented a floor sander, took my time, hand sanded in between each coat of poly and ten years later, it still looks like a new floor.

I hope you solve your problem!

badgerfan said:

does anyone have advice for lightening black stains in hardwood floors?
any chemicals that is known to work?
Or any useful websites that have examples of before and after type pics.?

Click to expand...

Its called Oxyclean., I redid the floors in the old house by sanding with the Varathane sander from Lowes.
Dark stains will come off with Oxyclean, with repeat
applications. Treat spots first. I do the whole floor also. Its only difficult to predict the final outcome with
clean polyurathane. I did not use stain. After I painted the living room I hated it, but
after a couple days the whole look changed. I can't say why, but it looked nice.
I also had stains where the padding melted, or did some kind of change. it actually
expanded producing rises in the old rug orginally covering the floor.

Add a couple tables spoons full to a couple gallons and mop the area. Let completly dry first
before more applications. This also gets rid of pet odor stains and smell..