Opinions solicited

[TuckerTavern]

The background: we bought a circa 1820s house almost 5 years ago. The kitchen has a huge fireplace with parts of the crane still intact, but we haven't been able to use the kitchen in all this time, we have a makeshift kitchen in the dining room. The kitchen floor is original heartpine, the middle 6 feet were rotted beyond repair and had to be removed and the joists replaced. We had a local guy mill the replacement section out of yellow pine because buying repurposed heart pine was way too expensive and I couldn't find it in the right width anyway. The walls and the ceiling are all horizontal heartpine T&G, completely covered in baked on fireplace creosote. We've gotten the walls pretty clean, but the ceiling will never be clean enough to just seal so we'll have to paint it. I didn't want to paint the floor, ceiling, *and* the walls, I'll paint 2 out of 3, but really don't want paint on all 3.
So the question (finally) is should I try to stain the replacement flooring so that it matches colorwise with the heartpine and then just seal the floor? Or, should I paint the floor and just seal the walls? There isn't much natural light back there and if the walls look like our parlor floor it will be lovely, but a deeper red than I think will look good. I'm afraid it will look dungeonesque. There won't be banks of white cupboards to lighten it up either. I'm doing an unfitted kitchen with antiques and pieces that I already own, none of which are brightly/lightly colored.
Thanks for reading this novella. Looking forward to hearing your opinions.

[Gothichome]

Tucker, I think the period solution back in the day would be a white wash every few years. My personal feeling is to paint the ceiling and stain the floor. Leave the walls alone. My thoughts are based on keeping a period look with the open hearth and a crane still in place. Unless you plan on cooking on the open hearth you can install a repro (period stove) in the hearth if it’s big enough.
You know Mal, Mick or one of the other folks here with Georgen homes might have a better feel for what your after.

[TuckerTavern]

I don't plan on cooking on the hearth. The amount of build-up in the kitchen leads me to believe that the fireplace must have smoked horribly. I do have a lovely cast iron cookstove, but don't want to put it there and obscure the view of the fireplace. I had tossed around whitewash, we've made it before when we were on the farm. Now, I'll toss it around some more....

[phil]

if you are sanding the floors I'd do that first, then treat the darker areas with wood bleach, then I'd use dainish oil so you can see the color of the wood in it's finished state, just do one coat of clear oil to make it pop.. after that you can mix just about 5% of an appropriate brown into the danish oil and do more coats, slowly over about three coats try to bring the two colors closer. after that you can continue with clear oil or use the finish you want.
I would not use a heavy stain, that's no better than paint. It will hide the grain and look like its from ikea or something.

[TuckerTavern]

Good points, Phil. Mick & I were chatting quite a bit about Rubio Monocoat and I'm kind of leaning that way, even on the walls maybe in one of their tinted products. I don't have to feel guilty about covering up the heart pine under paint that way.

[historicalwork]

I would just note my recent use of pallman magic oil for the floors. Not suggesting better or worse than Rubio. Just another option. I think they are similar products - just something to look into.

[phil]

for the topcoat shellac is probably pretty authentic, it's ok but it isn't a very hard wearing finish. Oils such as dainish oil can be renewed. poly is one of the hardest wearing , some feel its like a coat of plastic which it sort of is but it can be scuff sanded and recoated. Im not sure of the wear resistence of the rubio and "magic oil"

what I lke to do is use the dainish oil and do a few coats of that to harden the top surface, under the surface and then use poly to form a hard shell. If you apply a thin topcoat with a colorant then you are hiding the grain by applying pigments on top of the wood and also as it wears you will wear through this pigmented layer but of course the pigments will remain in the lower areas such as dents or anywhere one board is a bit lower than the rest. to get the color back to uniform may be tricky.

There is indeed a lot to consider and it is a personal choice. where the floor is and how you use it may define it's wear. If its just inside the door it will see more wear than an upstairs bedroom. Also the authenticity of the finish may be more important in some situations than others. while the rubio may look great after its application I know you generally dont' apply a lot of product and it is sort of buffed on top of the surface but not really driven into the pores of the wood in a way an oil would be. If you wear through the pigment in some areas how will you fix that? or will it be a reliable finish that lasts many years like the poly?

in general most finishes look best if any pigments are not between the actual wood and your eye, this is because the pigments block the actual wood and it's grain and the ribbon and reflections that come from within the wood. there are a lot of factors and I dont; think anyone can say this is the best way. whatever you do will be a trade off of the various properties such as how it wears, how easy it is to apply , the cost and how easy it is to repair.

You could probably use some oil coatings that soak into the wood and try to get the pigments there where they wont' wear off and then maybe you can use the topcoat of your choice on top of the wood. Or you might like the ease of reapplication of the oil finishes alone.

I like to do three coats of oil then about 3 coats of poly but others have preferences too. I don't think anyone can say this is the "right way" in this case. we may do better to try to give you info and let you compare the properties to consider your best choice.. in the end it's your house and your decision and I dont; think anyone really cares what product you choose to do it they just dont' want to give bad advice These are important decisions and one shoe wont' fit every situation.

other than what coating you choose how fussy you are with filling nail holes or cracks is another area where you may make decisions. some don't fill anything , some fill every crack some use the same color of putty and basically flood over the whole floor between sandings and some may do some special mixes so you can apply the color of putty to each local area as some boards may be darker or lighter.

If you use putty try to get the best match , not to the wood but to the wood with the finish of your choice on top. when you start applying finishes it can sometimes change the color of the wood more than the putty so while it matched on unfinished wood it may stand out like a some thumb once the finish is on top. Some floors have large differences due to the characteristics of the wood and some species are more uniform throughout.

last year I did my living room floor and it was quite damaged so many nails were exposed, I went ot a lot of work to spot fill each hole but it took a long time. Im happy with the results and you can't easily tell it was so riddled with nail holes ( after setting all the shiners) if your floor is thick enough you might not need to sand so low that you expose that many nails. You kind of have to do the best you can with what you have unless you want o start replacing boards.

My rule of thumb is to fill any crack I could stick a credit card into and that seems to work for me.. Perhaps in other areas where you have drastic humidity changes you'd fill less cracks. the more cracks you fill the less dust and dirt can accumulate which makes floor cleaning nicer. but if you go too crazy you can have the floor buckling. On some floors they dontl; do the threshold properly and water can wick in quite far from exposed endgrain so I'd check if you have outside doors to see if it is done right or not. Some people want a more rustic looking floor and thats another personal touch. you can finish and finish to a high shine of you like or you can keep it rough like the flor of a pub might be. both can look nice so it's another preference. once you have a better idea of the end result you want and how much time you choose to put into it, then you can make the choices that fit best with your situation. i tend to go a little nuts with it but I guess I enjoy doing it and I have refinished all my floors now. It took many hours because of the choices I made and others are happy to hire a kid with a sander one day and sploosh down some sort of coating the next day and call it done.. or you can toil over the perfect job for months.. Its your choice but let us know how you do and I'd try to learn about all the choices you have before you proceed. The time to study and find out from others is probably well spent.

a lot of the newer floors use water based poly. it doesn't stink during application and it doesn't allow the wood to darken as much as the oil based poly. the water tends to raise the grain a bit, whereas the oil finishes dont' have water in them so they dont' have that issue. the oil based poly is a bit more yellow and the floors will darken quite a bit after application as the sunlight darkens the wood, but if the finish has UV blockers this may not happen so much. One reason I like the oil is because I wan this darkening effect to happen over time.

I hope you get all the info you need to make the choices you like best.

[Sow's Ear Mal]

Tucker, could you post a view of the room in this thread? I'd love to see it. ... Mal

[TuckerTavern]

Tucker, could you post a view of the room in this thread? I'd love to see it. ... Mal

Umm, haha, no. The kitchen is the repository for furniture we aren't using, boxes of stuff, general junk. It's not picture worthy at present. There are pictures of the walls on the website www.thornburghhouse.com and a few pictures on my Instagram https://www.instagram.com/kettle_and_herb/
Also, Thornburgh House has a Facebook page that has other pictures not found on the website.