Wood – Sanding and revarnishing areas of different shades (wood floors)

hardwood-floorsandingvarnishing

I have been sanding my wooden floor with the intent of revarnishing.

However, before I did this I moved a few 1kitchen counters and such around. So now the areas which had counters on top for the last few years are a lighter colour than the areas that were exposed. (The same varnish was used, just the lighter areas have been covered for about 6 years, the entire life of the floor) In one case the floor area hadn't even been varnished beforehand. Even after sanding, the difference is very noticeable

Is there any (hopefully easy) way of equalising or even blending together the contrasting areas so the difference isn't as noticeable?

[Lighter coloured box]

Best Answer

If this is just a clear coat on the wood, then you won't be able to "fix" it. If the coating was a stain you could sand the light area and re-stain with a slight blending overlap into the dark area. Then sand the blending until the color looks blended. Another way you might be able to correct this, if it a clear coat, is to get a slightly gray stain, or light color to match the dark area, then sand and blend and sand then coat. But as was stated above, this is a sunlight issue, and there is no way to stop this from happening unless you do the entire floor, then cover it with a UV stable coating.