Old Oak Floors to be redone

[Karen Sanders]

I am buying 2 houses on one property. One is a rental and the other will be my home. The 50's oak floor is still there and looks pretty good but I am in the middle of refinishing them by stripping them clear down to the wood. I have been told that instead of staining and then putting poly on that I should get the poly with the stain in it. 

Good idea? Also is poly the best coating?

[JD Martin]

No. The poly with built-in stain sucks. It is very difficult to get it to look even, because the stain is just sitting in the poly carrier and more or less lays on top of the wood. I have used it for some specialty stuff, like trying to do a custom match of an existing wood cabinet door or blend in a floor repair, but if you want a stained floor you should stain the floor and poly it separately.

My preference is for sanded wood, unstained, with an oil-based poly. Water based has its uses - it goes down and dries really fast (you can do half a dozen coats in a couple of days) and it's almost odorless, but it needs a whole lot of coats to be anywhere near as durable as oil-based and it is a lot harder to work with, i.e. keeping a wet edge, spreading evenly without leaving puddles and missed areas, etc.