I've recently stripped the floor on our 100 year old house. I did the upstairs flooring a while ago. For the upstairs we finished with a clear varnish as the wood was old pine and had a nice browny honey look, the sort of which only comes with age. We were happy with the finish, but decided that we would like a darker almost mid brown finish when varnishing the downstairs floor. After trying many tester tins and waxes we settled on a light english oak stain with clear varnish on top. However this was all based on the wood being the same as the upstairs floor (stripped an upstairs floorboard to try the varnishes on). Now that the floor has been stripped it appears that although it looked like pine, it is a lot redder and this has resulted in the kind of orange / red finish that we were looking to avoid. Anyone have any suggestions of the type of wood this could be? Luckily the greeny tint from the stain has dampened the loudness of the orange / red somewhat, but it is still a bit of a shock. I will post a picture if I can. Maybe someone could suggest something to make the floor more neutral in colour Thanks Druzil
I've recently stripped the floor on our 100 year old house. I did the upstairs flooring a while ago. For the upstairs we finished with a clear varnish as the wood was old pine and had a nice browny honey look, the sort of which only comes with age. We were happy with the finish, but decided that we would like a darker almost mid brown finish when varnishing the downstairs floor. After trying many tester tins and waxes we settled on a light english oak stain with clear varnish on top. However this was all based on the wood being the same as the upstairs floor (stripped an upstairs floorboard to try the varnishes on). Now that the floor has been stripped it appears that although it looked like pine, it is a lot redder and this has resulted in the kind of orange / red finish that we were looking to avoid. Anyone have any suggestions of the type of wood this could be? Luckily the greeny tint from the stain has dampened the loudness of the orange / red somewhat, but it is still a bit of a shock. I will post a picture if I can. Maybe someone could suggest something to make the floor more neutral in colour Thanks Druzil
In an Edwardian house I would expect all original boards to be pine. But maybe the GF ones have been replaced at some time? In our house, some of the ground floor floorboards were replaced in the 1980s due to woodworm, mine were redone with new pine boards. New pine looks very different to old - so maybe the same in your case?
Originally posted by velvet: In an Edwardian house I would expect all original boards to be pine. But maybe the GF ones have been replaced at some time? In our house, some of the ground floor floorboards were replaced in the 1980s due to woodworm, mine were redone with new pine boards. New pine looks very different to old - so maybe the same in your case?
Thanks Velvet I wondered this, but I did come accross some woodworm when sanding. Also the previously removed original built in dresser & cupboard showed marks where they had once been, so I presume they are the original floorboards. The boards are about 1cm wider than upstairs which suggests to me they may be a different wood, but the look is pine (with all the knots etc.) just not the colour. I have heard that pine can be red in tone as well. Does anyone know if this is true? Thanks Druzil
It can be - I have new pine boards in the loft conversion & they are a real mix of colours, which looks really nice. Some cream, some beige - and some reddish.
