Finish for refurbed hardwood floor

[BadAtMaths2]

Got someone coming to sand the floors, 100 y old parquet. What’s the best finish to get. We’ve got a dog and a cat, it’s the hall, dining room and living room.

Bump

I've never had parquet, so I don't know if they're best with oil because of the way they're laid.
But we have stripped wood floorboards, with Osmo in some rooms and clear varnish in others, and I would go with varnish. It's harder wearing, and I prefer the look - oddly enough I think the floorboards look more 'natural' with varnish.
There's not much in it though, so you can't go far wrong.

That said, we don't have pets. With varnish, if it scratches, you have to sand the lot down to revarnish - with Osmo, as I understand it (never done it) you can just lightly sand that section and the oil.

We used Tung oil on our solid wood floors, even including the kitchen, and will do the same in the new house here when we have laid it. I had previously found polyurethane varnish to be a complete drag- even the most expensive Dulux diamond stuff put on exactly to instructions scratched and looked awful, varnish takes ages to dry, regularly needs sanding and redoing which is a massive job, and it's difficult and time consuming to patch. I asked Danish friend what they do over there (they have a lot of wood floors) and she said oil. We sanded all the varnish off and oiled and it was absolutely right for us- even if there are scratches you just wipe a bit of oil in the scratch and it's fine. But we didn't have kids/pets so cleaning the floors wasn't as much of an issue.

The pets I'm more worried about the scratches so I think oil sounds better. The floors get mopped once a week whether they need it or not...so the cleaning isn't such an issue I suppose.

Ah - cleaning...

I'm much more vigorous in terms of cleaning with the varnished floors than the oiled ones - not a full on wet mop on either - but a gentle wipe with with a more natural product for the oiled floors, and squirting Vileda all over the place and a hard wipe on the varnished ones. That might say more about me than the floors though...

Apologies for the lighting in the pictures (artificial light and phone camera, so don't read anything into the colours) but one is the varnished floor that is run over daily by a wheeled office chair, and the other is the oiled floor where I have ironed in front of the TV on a weekend. The oiled floor is only since November last year, the varnished (office chair) one is three years old.

Both are good, and I much prefer both to carpet, but...

Yes that's right with Osmo oil. It has several different finishes so you can have natural matte or more of a sheen.

Deks Olje oil here it's not cheap but we've used it in the house and on a boat

Wax is nicer I think.