Sand / Stain / Oil / Wax / Paint Floorboards? - Help

[Mumswang]

Hello

This is the first of 143,000 questions I am going to have over the next few months - we're buying our first home - yay

So downstairs, the sitting and dining rooms have no carpet, but the floorboards don't appear to have been treated at all. They are in fairly good nick, so prior to moving all our stuff in we are going to do something to them.

The house is 1920's so I assume they are pine

We will hire a sander, and from my extensive mnetting research I think we shall treat them using Osmo Polyx Hardwax Oil

So... do we stain them? is it usual to want to match the colour to ones furniture? Is that what you do? or do you just pick a colour you like? Or do you wait to see if the boards are a nice colour themselves once sanded (are sort of greyish at the mo) and then decide if they need staining?

Our dining room furniture is (predominantly) light oak. Our couch is goldish, other sitting room furniture lightish wood (mango). walls are currently neutral, and we don't plan on repainting until we've been there a while, had DC2, due immenently, and done some other bits and bobs that will need doing, in time.

So do we keep the floor light too? I have the fear of orangey pine

Secondly, upstairs, the big bedroom I think we'll just do the same as whatever we decide for downstairs but I think the other two, which are a nice big room for DS and little tiny room for DC2, who is due 2 weeks after we move I want to paint - any paint recommendatio for floors? And what colour, I think white would be too stark, creamy is a bit meh or perhaps something quite dark? Like f&b Downpipe, would that be madness?

I Osmo'd some pine floorboards and they did come up a very rich colour, but they were Victorian red pine. It didn't look that bad IMO.

The colour of the wood when wetted is a good guide to the colour with clear oil. I don't think it matters if the floor is a different colour to furniture as long as the tone is complementary, you'd think the floor would be longer lasting. Osmo also do tinted Polyx Oil and Wood Wax "Creativ" in colours and wood tones.

Hannant's do a range of tinted-pine woodstains, I guess you'd need to mail order them. They are just a water based dye but you can oil over them. That would give you a neutral brown (like you see on more contemporary pine furniture) rather than an orange tone.

Sorry, have made lifetime study of woodstains because I'm so fussy!

FWIW I would go for light floors in the small bedrooms. Children's rooms accumulate mess so they don't normally suffer from being stark. In a few years he will be pestering you to paint it black in a Doctor Who theme anyway!

The problem with drastically altering the colour of pine floors is that the stain tends to be taken up unevenly by the wood. it does not matter that the wood floor does not match the furniture. pine will be pale when sanded and darken with age and exposure to light. a neutral brown seems a good idea. I think that White is a good idea for the children's rooms. darker painted floors can look a bit shed like. I have used boni chemi products with great success.

very helpful. thank you

my god, decisons decisions, it's SO hard trying to decide this stuff....wait until i'm trying to choose kitchens and bathrooms

Shameful bump in case any floor aficionados just came home from work