Carlisle’s stains are different, and that’s a good thing

• Posted by
• Christine Halvorson

We had a little “staining situation” recently, and we wanted to share it with you to show how we work with our customers from the time they find our product to the time they set their furniture on their recently finished new floor.

In the building of a rather large new home in McLean, Virginia, the floor installer and finisher contacted Carlisle’s Todd Waterman to show him how the Bradford Umber stain (see all about our stains here)he had applied had actually turned out, and he was not pleased.  The installer sent Todd some photos so that he could see it for himself. Sure enough—there was an unacceptable amount of color variation and some unsightly overlap marks in the stain they had just applied.  Todd and Janel went over to Virginia from our Washington D.C. showroom and Todd proceeded to apply more stain right over the stain that they had applied some two days before.  The homeowner and floor installer were standing by to watch.  Todd, however, used a lambs wool applicator and let the stain sit for just a few minutes before he wiped it away in a circular motion, changing the rag often as it got filled.  Then he wiped the boards down all at once in the direction of the wood’s grain.  Todd completed a 3-foot by 3-foot section and then applied more stain, overlapping by a few inches where he had already wiped a section off. He did this same thing down and back all over again until the whole room was done.

The group that had gathered to watch this then stood some more to watch the stain “set up.”

“It came out very even and consistent in the rich color that we all know and love,” Todd says.  The installer had explained to Todd that he had applied the Carlisle stain in the same way he had always done with other stains, which are more watery and penetrating, by wiping it on with a rag and wiping it right off.  Though he had been staining floors for years, he had not used this method and felt there was something wrong with the stain.  Todd says the installer just needed to “embrace change” in his methods.

Todd was asked to return to the house a few days later, after the original crew completed re-staining the rest of the floors in the house. This time Todd’s job was to show them how to now apply the Tung Oil that the installer also wasn’t crazy about using.  So Todd applied the Tung Oil in one of the bedrooms as the group all watched again.  The result?  As expected, the oil “brought the stain to life” and leveled the light and dark areas to a consistent tone throughout the floor.  The whole gang, Todd says, was very pleased.

Todd says this story just demonstrates what we’ve always known: Carlisle’s stains are different and that’s a good thing.  They are a topical stain, which means they are easy to work with and to re-activate, as Todd did after the original problem application.  And it allows control over the depth of color.  More watery stains, like Minwax, soaks into the wood and the color is the color.  Carlisle’s stains allow for flexibility in adjusting the color, fix spots before the finishing, and result in a darker, richer tone that is hard to achieve in other stains.

Oh. And did we mention they’re easy to work with?  Todd admits that prior to walking into this $6 million home and acting like he knew what he was doing, he had only ever stained a 400-square-foot floor. Once.

We’ll try to show you some of the “after” pictures real soon.

Posted on Aug 14, 2009 AT 05:35 AM in (0) Comments