farmhouse with lots of pine doors. should I paint them? or stain them? or leave them?

[hatwoman]

we've just moved to a lovely old farmhouse and I can't decide whether I like the internal doors or not. They're a good style for the type of house, and good quality - big chunky things. but I'm just not sure about the colour. They're the colour of the top one and style of the bottom one (on one side). <a class="break-all" href="http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=www.gfmdovetail.co.uk/images/oak_door_1.jpg&imgrefurl=www.gfmdovetail.co.uk/farmhouse_oak_door.html&usg=__9lCMAtOkzMGHwcx8kzKz5eSWTlE=&h=164&w=168&sz=14&hl=en&start=1&sig2=CN6-mN-T5LZrhN6t6Qqx5g&zoom=0&itbs=1&tbnid=JxlZ-T5_8vWzaM:&tbnh=97&tbnw=99&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dinternal%2Bfarm%2Bhouse%2Bdoor%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4GGLL_en-GBGB337GB337%26biw%3D1579%26bih%3D728%26tbm%3Disch&ei=c3TATZXNE5DCswaUqPHCBQ" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here

any opinions?

I prefer the colour of the bottom one. If yours have already been varnished/stained you may need to strip them I think?

the pictures are of oak - and whilst I agree the bottom one is a better colour I'm fairly sure you couldn't stain pine that colour - and I'm not sure it would be worth it. I was thinking either of paint (white?) or a deep stain like this or leaving them.

i would leave them. are they original and what colour is the rest of the wood?

Strip them then wax them?

If you get them dipped then they come out much paler.

Don't dip them, they'll split along the joints then if you ever do want to paint them you'll forever be re-filling the gaps as they just keep re-opening. Dipping can dry out the timber. Personally I'd paint them because the colour of the bare wood dictates the colour scheme in the whole house. Paint them something neutral and suddenly you have a lot more choices with all the walls.

If they've been stained then it's really hard to stop the stain bleeding through if you paint them. We've tried all sorts of things on the woodwork in our house with mixed success. The best so far is dilute PVA painted on the wood before using an undercoat. However, it's still not perfect and the stain is bleeding through in places.