Help with a woodstain disaster? Help, advice, information, answers and tips on all types of flooring from laminate and carpet to timber and vinyl

[GlennB]

A cowboy builder is threatening to wreck a lovely new floor.

He had the woodstain/varnish guy booked at the same time as the plumber. The plumber needed to walk across the floor, so the floor guy left a gap in the staining for the plumber to cross, then came back and filled it in later.

This leaves a vile darker "tide-mark" of double-stain at the join. It looks awful. The varnish hasn't gone on yet.

Is there a way to fix this, or at least improve it?

Mant thanks for any advice

[Tall Tone]

Wood floor staining is difficult to do at the best of times, leaving a walk route through a floor seems a very odd thing to do.
As you say, what has happened is that some areas of the floor have been given a double dose of stain and this has darkened these areas of wood. As the problem is in the wood sadly the only solution is to re-sand the floor and start again.
Spirit based stains will give you the best colouration but are also the most difficult to put down. Modern low solvent oil based stains are much easier and quicker and dont give you overlap marks.