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
Hi was wondering if you could give me advice? I have sanded down my pine floorboards, applied a sample of Osmo Raw because I wanted to keep it natural and it has turned the floorboards little red. I then tried a water based poly and turned my floor green. What can i apply to the boards that doesn’t turn them red, yellow, orange or green!!!? Thanks.
Reply to Bronagh Grabany:
Hello Bronagh,
Its a common issue with Pine Floor boards the natural tones of the wood want to come out when a product is applied and this is more obvious and harder to avoid the older to boards get. Many people are exposing old Victorian floor boards for today’s decor and these boards have been through many years of varying finishes, floor coverings, or exposures to UV. They many have been sanded or stripped or treated many times over and with every project the wood is changed a little and so as it gets older the reactions to the different treatments applied can intensify and it will be difficult to get that totally natural appearance.
Often the best way to treat Pine is with a slight colour. This can be from a water based stain such as Manns Classic Pine Stain (https://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/products/manns-pine-wood-stain) this soaks into the wood to give colour and can be over coated with a varnish or oil top coat.
Or even easier with a coloured oil such as Blanchon Hard Wax Oil Tints (https://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/products/blanchon-hard-wax-oil-tints) which colours and protects with just two very thin coats applied.
It is a case of trying more test areas to find what will work well with your wood. Very light pigments can help to reduce the effect of the natural colours.
I am here to help if you have any further questions, just get in touch via our contact us (https://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/pages/contact) page.
All the Best Samantha.
Reply to Bronagh Grabany:
Having just refinished 120 year old pine floors, I wanted to keep them extremely light and natural, without going yellow. If you use Bona Natural Seal, that will do the trick. They also have a Nordic Seal, which makes them even lighter in color. I used the Bona Matte as the poly afterwards for a sheen free finish. They look fantastic.
You have such great advice here, we were wondering if you could assist us as well.
We are installing a new pine floor from raw lumber. We are planning on having it extend through our kitchen, bathroom and living/dining room. We would like to apply a stain for a dark and more rustic look. From the comments I’ve read we’re leaning towards a tinted Fiddes Hard Wax Oil to finish the floors with and have ordered some color samples.
Are there any other products we should be using to either prep or finish the wood before or after applying the Hard Wax Oil especially for protection from potential water exposure in the kitchen/bathroom areas? Or do you think we should be looking at different product line entirely?
I’ve also read that you get greater durability by applying a clear Hard Wax Oil over the tinted layer(s). Does layering like that present any complications as far as color matching for future touch ups or refinishing?
Many thanks. The Foxes.
Reply to Marisa:
Hello Marisa,
Thank you for getting in touch with your question, sounds like a big project and you have picked a great product to apply to the floors once the boards are in. The Fiddes Hard Wax Oil Tints (https://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/products/fiddes-hard-wax-oil-tints) will offer great protection to the wood, it is easy to apply and maintain over time as well and with the right cleaning and care will last for many years to come.
For Bathroom area I would also recommend a coat of the Osmo Wood Protector (https://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/products/osmo-wood-protector) this will help to make the wood extremely moisture repellent.
Once you have your samples, I would recommend trying test areas with both options with the tinted and the clear oils, so one coat of tint and one coat of the clear, or two coats of the tinted oil, and seeing which you prefer, as it is a softwood, you may even be able to get two coats of the tint and then one coat of the clear, although you should check with a test area first to ensure good uptake of all coats.
In terms of durability they are basically the same, when it comes to maintenance and re coats, this will depend on the extent of wear, if your top coat is clear than you can simply apply the clear oil as a refresher and if you went for the two coats of Tints then use that for your refresher. It will be better to ensure wear doesn’t go all the way through if you have got the clear on the top as you say this will make it more complicated. Keep and eye on high wear areas, such as doorways and top up just these areas more regularly if required.
How and what you use for floor cleaning is also worth thinking about, many cleaning household names are designed to remove stubborn stains and grease, they are likely, over time to also break down the oil in your wood. A suitable floor cleaner such as the Bona Cleaner Refill for Oiled Floors (https://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/products/bona-cleaner-for-oiled-floors-refill) is PH Neutral and will not damage the oil you are trying to keep clean.
I hope that helps and if you have any questions at all please do message me via the contact us (https://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/pages/contact) page.
All the Best Samantha.
Reply to Samantha Taylor:
Thank you so much for getting back to me. So the Osmo Wood Protector and Fiddes Hard Wax Oil are compatible? One can be applied over the other without issue? I am new to both products, so just don’t want to learn the hard way about which products can be mixed or not.
I’ve started laying the floors in living and dining rooms first. The wood we’re working with is a little warped, it looks some small gaps are just going to be present in the final floor. (I’m working with 8’, 3/4” x 8” tongue in groove lumber.) I don’t for see this being such an issue in the dry areas, but it might mean it’s not the best flooring choice for the bathroom and kitchen areas. Would it be best to fill in small gaps with some kind of filler before oiling? Do you recommend any specific product?
Reply to Marisa:
Good Afternoon Marisa,
Yes the Fiddes and the Wood Protector are likely to be fine together, as with any product combination, we always recommend a test area first, this will ensure that you not only like the result that will be achieved, but also that there are no adverse reactions.
If you need a filler for long thin gaps between boards then a flexible Gap sealer such as the Osmo Interior Gap Sealer (https://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/products/osmo-gap-sealer) is a good one to consider and suitable for use with the oiled finish.
If the gaps are smaller and do not require that level of flexibility then a mix and fill product such as the Fiddes Wood Filler Gel that you mix with sanding dust is another option to consider.
Do feel free to let me know if you have any further questions via our contact us (https://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/pages/contact)
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All the Best Samantha.
Hi there! I am not sure if this blog is still active, but I’d love some help if so! We are renovating a cabin which has what we believe to be pine floors. We sanded the floors in the bedroom and loved the look of what was underneath and left it natural w/ a coat of sealant & water-based poly.
The floors in the kitchen however sanded down and looked COMPLETELY different. Very streaky and patchy and we’re not sure what to do! Considering bleaching them. Are they a different type of wood? Did I not sand them enough? Help! Want to figure it out before I sand the rest of the living room and potentially have the same issue.
(Trying to find a way to attach images but cannot!) Let me know if you’re able to help!
Thank you!
Reply to Whitney:
Hello Whitney,
It does sound like they could be a different wood, or possible a similar wood, but have aged differently or had different treatments in the past. I would be happy to take a look at some photos if you wish to send some over to wfd.advice@wood-finishes-direct.com.
It could be that further sanding will do the job or simply that the boards have been exposed to something that has had changed the structure of the wood. If you can make reference to this post and send any further details that you think will be relevant to the project and I will be happy to see if I can make any suggestions.
Kind regards Samantha.
Hi ,HELP! We put pine flooring in our seasonal cottage about 20 years ago and put varathane on it. Now it looks quite distressed and I am okay with that as it is a simple cottage . Recently we removed a wood stove and put new pine boards on that space. We are hoping that we can make these boards blend in with the rest of the floor. The floor has darkened quite a bit over the years. Any advice as to how i might go about this. We are hoping not to have to sand the whole floor etc. Hoping you can give us some good tips.
Thank you
Warm regards
Lynda