I’m an Architect renovating my 1909 upstairs bedrooms. I have a flooring issue I need help with. I installed 6″ wide R+Q white oak and stained it a light colored stain (Daly’s Butternut).

I then used Basic Coatings PureMatte which is a two part water based finish. Unfortunately when I put the last first coat on, I left some heavy spots that, once dried, tried to sand out and went too deep into the stain. I hadn’t noticed I went too deep (light stain) and put the second coat on, leaving areas of unstained wood with finish on it.

I then learned I should have scraped the areas of overlap instead of sanding, but now I needed to get down to the bare wood in order to stain again! So I’ve gotten to the point where I have scraped out areas I need to restain and have tried to stain but it doesn’t seem to be coming out the same color.

I didn’t go down to 60grit and work my way up to 120, just did a light sanding with 120. Does anyone think this is the issue? Does the water based finish penetrate further into the wood than I have scraped?

I’m frustrated and would hate to have to start over. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!