Of all the types of flooring available, wood with the perfect finish is still the most popular. And oak floorboards are gorgeous as well as fashionable. But pine wood flooring is another strong contender in the beauty stakes, a softwood that’s been used to make floorboards for centuries and a feature of many old homes across Britain.
Pine Log Rounds – from antiquewoodnews.com
Vintage Pine Floorboards
We’ve taken several long, detailed looks at oak flooring, furniture and doors. Now it’s time to explore the wonderful world of pine. If you have a pine floor that needs attention, or you’ve been tasked with getting one in apple-pie order for someone else, here’s everything you need to know.
Types of pine
Pine, also sometimes called redwood, is cheaper and more common than traditional hardwoods, ranging from almost white through various yellow shades to a deep, rich red. For a softwood, it’s often remarkably resilient and long-lasting, especially in the context of well-looked-after pine floors.
Pinus is the species we see most in UK and EU plantations. It’s useful for all sorts of utility work, a common wood for beams, flooring and structural purposes. But that’s just the start of it. There are a whole load of different types of pine trees found in the wild, so many in fact that the Wood Database website’s impressively long list is far too detailed to repeat here.
If you’re interested in the similarities and differences between soft pines and hard pines, and those within each group, you can’t beat the Wood Database pine page, an excellent resource.
Horses for courses – The pine flooring aesthetic
There’s a variety of flooring ideas and opinions concerning keeping wooden floors looking good. Some concerns involve floor maintenance, as some floors require little in the way of maintenance, while others require plenty of elbow grease and attention. And the choice is often a matter of aesthetics.
One of the best things about wood flooring is that it changes, going through all sorts of fascinating stages over time, depending on its type and location, with an equally wide range of end results. And every stage of the ageing process has its own beauty.
You might love the hundred-year-old (or much older) patina your old pine boards have acquired through generations of wear. It might be stained and dirty, uneven and bent, sometimes more or less black. But to you it’s perfect – a living piece of history marking decades or even centuries of human use. And that’s fine. If it has lasted this long in one piece, it might well last a great deal longer without falling apart on you.
Eastern White Pine Cabin Interior
Your floor might be reasonably worn, partway between new and aged. You might adore the effect – the real shabby chic ideal – or you may prefer to get rid of the muck and repair any damage, giving it a whole new lease of life as well as a smooth, contemporary look.
A brand-new pine floor, on the other hand, can look pretty raw. The paler it is, the newer and less settled-in it looks. You might want to use a wood dye to create a subtler, less in-your-face effect, calming the brightness down a bit, and if it hasn’t already been protected, you’ll want to add a finishing oil or good-quality varnish.
How pine changes over time
The colour is one thing. The condition of old pine floors is another. Old boards can cup or arch over time, each board curling up at the edges, which means when you try to sand them you tend to get a thin sanded strip down the middle of each board at the high point, which widens on each pass of the sander as the boards are slowly levelled by the sanding process.
When you sand old pine boards back to the wood, they can look very pale, even colourless. But don’t worry. The minute you apply a clear wood finishing product like an oil or varnish, that warm, attractive natural golden colour will come flooding through.
Testing the colour of your floorboards before finishing them
This change in colour is so dramatic that it’s usually best to test how it’ll look finished before choosing an oil or varnish. Luckily it’s easy. All you do is rub the surface with a damp – not wet – cloth and you get the exact same effect as oiling or varnishing – the colour suddenly shines through. Once you know what’s what, you can choose your finish: either something to enhance the natural colour or a colourless product.
What if you want to get rid of that bright orange/gold colour?
Orange or golden pine isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. And that’s the effect you can get from a standard clear oil or varnish – as time passes it can turn a deeper orange/gold, even a nasty brown. If your pine floor has gone a funny colour, you can always sand the old finish off and replace it with a product that won’t change colour as it ages.
If you’re looking to retain the natural appearance of freshly sanded boards, pine or oak, Osmo Polyx Oil Raw and Fiddes Hard Wax Oil Natural are both great products for defusing and countering the gold/orange colour you sometimes get.
- Osmo Polyx Oil Raw (3044) is made with natural oils and waxes, gives excellent protection and durability and is specifically formulated to retain the ‘natural’ look of wood. It counteracts the damp-looking darkening effect and grain enhancement you typically get with standard clear oils or varnishes.
- Fiddes Hard Wax Oil Natural also keeps wood looking as natural and unaltered in colour as possible and dries to a clear, satin-matt finish. It’s perfect for light-coloured woods like pine, spruce and oak.
Osmo Polyx Oil
Pine wood floor refinishing – Varnish or oil?
What’s best, an oil or a varnish? The protective qualities are much the same. But oil and varnish come with different types of maintenance, and to a great extent your choice depends on the amount of wear and tear the floor receives.
- Using a wooden floor varnish tends to provide better durability and less maintenance, but you’ll need to re-sand the entire floor back to bare wood when the varnish eventually gets damaged and worn. How long this takes depends on the type and quality of the varnish and how much wear your floor is subjected to. It could be every year if you have pets, visitors and kids running in and out all the time. It could be five years or more if your home life is a lot quieter or you’ve covered the floor with rugs.
- Using a wooden floor oil, on the other hand, requires maintenance, usually every couple of years, but it won’t flake, crack or peel off. It looks better than varnish as it begins to wear and is very easy to patch repair if it becomes worn in specific areas, unlike varnish. When an oiled floor starts to look like it’s past its best, simply clean with a suitable floor cleaner to remove any marks, scuffs or stains, then reapply a thin coat of oil, and “Voilà!” it’s just like new again. Even bad scuffs, stains, marks and light scratches can be fixed by lightly sanding the area and reapplying a fresh coat of oil.
A tough varnish, by the way, won’t make the flooring itself hard. If you drop something heavy on the floor, the wood will still dent even though the varnish stays intact.
We have put together this handy video helping you to understand the key difference between a varnish and oil, as well as application techniques.
Need help with your pine floorboards?
For more information about interior floor finishes and treatments, contact our team of resident experts who are always on hand to help with project advice and product recommendations.
We love to see before, during and after photos of any wood finishing project. If you would like to share your project pictures with us, you can either send us some photos or share on our Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or Instagram pages.
217 comments
Reply to Jane:
Hello Jane,
Thank you for getting in touch with your enquiry. You can carry out a simple oil test to see how saturated the wood currently is. Out a drop of the oil on an inconspicuous area of the floor and leave for 1 hour. If the oils soaks in or moves it may be possible to apply a further coat. If it remains unmoved then chances are your wood is saturated. Once you have this information you can consider how to move forward with your project.
Applying the Osmo Polyx Oil Raw (https://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/products/osmo-polyx-oil-raw-3044) can dull down the colour but if it does it is likely to have a minimal effect and I would recommend a test area first.
If you need any further advice please do feel free to email me direct on wood@finishes.direct
Kind Regards Samantha.
Hi, I am restoring the pine floorboards in a bathroom – they had been covered in plywood with cork tiles on top. They have been sanded to death and I applied Osmo natural which turned the boards intense orange. I also tried Blanchon environment oil in natural which was much more acceptable to I stripped back and started again. The thing is, now that I’m treating the entire floor, rather than just a sample area, the application has gone on very patchy – some of the oil goes straight in and some sits on the surface looking milky and taking longer to dry. (I have thoroughly stirred it) Once dry I am left with a very patchy finish.
I am wondering if something was applied to the floor in the past, such as a glue product that has soaked into the wood and can’t be sanded out. Do you have any other suggestions?
If I persevere and I’m not happy with the end result, how difficult would it be to apply a paint finish?
Reply to Jane Sorby:
Hello Jane,
I am sorry to hear that you have had this problem. I will be happy to take a look at some photos and see if I can make some helpful suggestions for you. If you can send me some photos of the whole floor and the effected areas as well as much detail about the project, application and preparation. You can email me at wood@finishes.direct and I’ll do my best to help you move forward with your project.
Kindest Regards Samantha.
Hi Great website!
Wondering if you can advise. We have a pine floor in a room that is going to be our kitchen – untreated pine floorboards from the 1980s – which have had rugs on. There is no finish on the floor at all. The sun has made the areas not covered by rugs orange and the areas under the rugs are much lighter. We really don’t want to sand the boards to avoid the mess and dust. Is there a product which will remove the orange tone from the floorboards and even up the colour all over? Then we’d like to achieve a scandinavian white wash finish but one that is hard wearing. We’ve been recommended to use a watered down white chalk paint and then finish with Polyvine Floor varnish. Is there a better way to achieve this ?
Thank you
Reply to Stella:
Hello Stella,
Orange is a common issue with Pine and many people love it a whilst others hate it ! It is the natural tones of the wood coming through and often when clear products are applied this can highlight the orange even more. The colour variation in your wood are due to the exposure to UV in different quantities will be difficult to even out in any way other than sanding or applying a dark colour to the wood.
As you want to achieve a white finish on your floor then sanding will be a recommended requirement and white finishes on pine floors, or in fact any wooden floors, to help give a even finish. We also have a very helpful Blog about white finishes and I would strongly recommend having a read of that, it has some good recommendations and also highlights some of the issues that can arise from white floors.
For example a white paint applied first followed by a clear varnish, for protection, will result in a yellow/cream colour finish. The Clear product impacts on how the light reflects on the white and you loose the purity.
There are many white oils in the Osmo Wood Oils (https://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/collections/osmo-oil) range that will give varying degrees of white, however when applied to pine can still show through some of the orange.
My advice will be to try a few test area with some samples first and see how the finish looks for you and if it will give the effect that you want.
I am happy to help guide you through the process and if you would like to email me at wood@finishes.direct
All the Best Samantha.
Hi,
Thanks for all the advice on here.
I am looking for a floor finish which I fear does not exist. I have sanded my oak floorboards back to a raw state and want to keep them like that but be able to clean them easily. Therefore the finishing product has to be very Matt and not change the colour at all.
I tried Osmo raw but that still darkened the nice light colour of the boards and introduced a slight red hue to the finish. The white pigment was also slightly uneven giving a patchy appearance. I haven’t tried Fiddes but as it is marketed as a satin finish it is not likely to be what I am looking for.
I have looked into nano sealants but the manufacturers tend to market this for water protection rather than household dirt.
Is there any new products on the market that just leaves the wood in its raw state?
Thanks very much
Reply to Jon Roche:
Hello Jon,
The Osmo Polyx Oil Raw (https://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/products/osmo-polyx-oil-raw-3044) and the Fiddes Hard Wax Oil Natural (https://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/products/fiddes-hard-wax-oil-oak-lightening) are the two that I would have recommended. These are the best products for leaving the wood as natural as possible.
The only other option is to use a Floor Polish (https://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/collections/wood-floor-wax). Floor polishes will barely change the tone of the wood, but are far less durable than a hard wax oil as those suggested above. Floor polishes require more regular maintenance to maintain the look and integrity of the finish. Another consideration is that the sheen level of the floor can increase if walked over in socks. The socks will effectively buff the floor and may result in a more slippery surface.
I am sorry that I can not make any alternate suggestion, and if you do need any further advice please feel free to get in touch (https://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/pages/contact).
Kind Regards Samantha.
Hi, we have just bought a Victorian terraced house that has a stripped pine floor throughout, including in the bathroom. It looks really nice but is a wooden floor in the bathroom a bad idea? We’re a little worried that if it gets repeatedly wet (which it will with two small children), it will become damp and mouldy and also harbour odour around the toilet. Is there a good sealant that would prevent these problems or is tiling just a safer bet. Many thanks
Reply to Beth Curmi:
Hello Beth,
Thank you for your enquiry. It would be fair to say that Bathroom floors are more susceptible to water ingress and stains from little accidents and so we do recommend the extra protection of Osmo Wood Protector (https://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/products/osmo-wood-protector) applied first will enhance the protection to the wood and help to keep it nourished and moisture repellent in a changing humidity and temperature.
It is of course advised to avoid long term standing water as it will eventually stain however with two thin coats of Osmo Polyx Oil (https://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/products/osmo-polyx-oil) will give great protection against this and should you get any marks or stains they are very easy to patch repair, taking the usual precautions with bathroom mats and ventilation will also help avoid problems from occurring.
For cleaning I can recommend Osmo Wash and Care (https://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/products/osmo-wash-and-care). I hope that helps and if you have any further questions please do not hesitate to get in touch (https://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/pages/contact).
Kind regards Samantha.
Hi
Having stained a redwood pine kitchen floor we then used a wax furniture polish on it to seal it. This is far too slippy for a kitchen floor and is therefore quite dangerous. Can you help us to determine what we need to do next; thanks in anticipation,