Options for treating a sanded wooden floor

[d000hg]

I've been testing colour options. So far I've tried 2-3 antique pine options and they look lovely, but not even close to the old boards colour. I don't mean a different shade, but a totally different colour/hue. The new boards are virtually white, when treated they are a lovely yellow. Whereas the sanded old boards are almost pink in comparison.

Is there another type of wood/colour I should be trying? My boards might be 150 years old if original, could they be pitch pine? Or is it possible they're not pine at all and I'm barking up the wrong tree?

 

[Doggit]

They'll be pine, but I doubt if they're pitch pine. But there are so many varieties that it's not worth worrying which one it is. You could find a stain match now, and then as the boards start to weather on their own, they'll change again to something completely different. You've just got to come up with something you're happy with, and then work from there.

 

[d000hg]

sure. I'm just wondering where the pink tinge comes from - not seen that before, or noticed it until I compared it. I'm wondering where I might even find a stain of that hue without custom making one (not going there!)

 

[Doggit]

No idea; you're on your own from here on in I'm afraid.

 

[pilsbury]

Your efforts seem very similar to mine. My room they had painted that black finish that melts and clogs the sand paper around the rug. The floor sander had not too much problem, but the edge sander struggled.

I went with treatex colour tone stain, I went quite dark, followed by treated clear hard wax oil. I went for satin finish but they do Matt and gloss. You need to put it all on nice and thin as mine took ages to dry. All fine in the end but caused me some real stress! The finished pic looks glossy as the floor was wet when taken. I’d use the treatex brand again.

 

[d000hg]

Thanks for sharing. Yes it does look similar, nice job there. It looks like you got away without replacing many boards?

Since we like the colour of the original wood we wanted to try and get the new boards matched (ish). We tried antique pine varnish and it was just awful once it dried. So we then spent hours stripping those boards back. We've since found some Colron Georgian Oak dye which is a much closer match... so we're staining the new boards then will apply a clear varnish over everything.

I've also experimenting with mixing some dye into the varnish for some boards in another room which I really can't face stripping, but don't care if they don't look great.

 

[pilsbury]

Matching will be trial and error. Keep mixing and testing.

 

[JohnD]

if you have a few jars of dye on the go, you can treat boards with a seemingly randomised variety of similar tints, which helps to hide variation. You can use one basic colour (I like "light teak") and add a hint of brown, red or black in your different jars.

This one has too much variation. I got better results with more similar colours. It's only the floor I dyed, not the doors, to try to make it seem in keeping.

Mahogany dye is very red. Teak has a slight warmth.

When the boards are from different sources they will not match unless you do something to hide it. The very dark one here is IIRC "Rosewood" or possibly "Mahogany" intended to draw the eye away from non-matching boards.

The instructions say apply with a rag, but I am very happy with the results using a small soft bristle brush.