IMO pickled oak looks no worse than the honey oak that I have on my kitchen cabinets, also from the 90's. In fact, it might be an improvement.

It’s pink because the oak is reddish/orange and the white stain makes it pink. I’m sorry. I may have contributed to the high inventory way back in the early 90s. Everyone loved it then.

Ha!! Well, that is the truth!!! We’ve had overload on that as well.

I just could never figure out if they intended to have pink everywhere or if the color was more of a whitewash and in time, the color becomes more pink?

All I know is the houses are way too much work to tackle due to it

:). Thanks Susie! Never thought about the wood aspect

Well, my parents had a lot of furniture in that hue so you just gotta blame it on the trend of the day. In 20-30 years everyone will be complaining of painted wood and that gray, weathered process.

"In 20-30 years everyone will be complaining of painted wood and that gray, weathered process."

Without realizing that it's really porcelain tile. ;-)

haha I inadvertently ended up w/it in my bathroom. Thinking I was going to get a thin white wash on the cabinets...and finding out that I should've stuck to my guns to not use varnish over them. Now I've had some sort of sickly yellow-pink wood to irritate me for the last 8 years. Soon to be gone, but still. I feel you!

It is pink because it is red oak and a whitewash over makes it is pink. You can always paint it. I have sandblasted stairs to get rid of it and then stained it dark that also works.

I totally understand. When I purchased my last home I found those pink oak cabinets in my kitchen, bathroom, etc. I proceeded to chalk painted them white. I couldn’t stand to look at them. Now they are pleasant to look at and the work came out very well.

It was always pink, that's the nature of red oak and whitewash.

Make no mistake, in 20 years, the same will be said about grey barnwood and shiplap everywhere.

I’m the oddball here. I actually like it! Maybe because I am so sick of the gray now. That cold Scandinavian look grays, whites...ugh, so over it.

It was a rejected option in my home in 1993. We chose honey oak. Kitchens that had the pickled oak started taking on orange and even greenish hues within a few years. That pickled stuff was not a good trend.

I don't think we can actually pin this one on the Scandinavians. American is going to have to own the All grey, all the time pop decorating trend. Yes, places where it's seriously dark in the winter go for light interiors. But red oak with Swedish floor soap tips closer to pickled oak than anything out of the "modern farmhouse grey" stylebook:

Now, American designer's interpretation of "Scandiavian" style may read more grey. But that isn't really THEIR tradition, either. :-)

(Note: Some of the floors in the above photos are probably 100 years old or more, and no one has ripped them out because they are "dated.")

Are you saying you bought a house with pickled oak flooring? Did you get a discount? If the floor is actual wood, it can be pulled up and replaced with regular wood flooring. Not cheap, but certainly doable. There is no area rug large enough to hide a roomful of pink floor.

If they're solid oak, you'd hardly need to tear them out. Sand them down and stain them a color you prefer.

And the next generation of home buyers will be saying the same thing about all the painted cabinetry. Person specific preferences are rarely appreciated down the line.

“What were they thinking?” The same thing will be said 10 years from now ... just about anything popular or trendy now.

It wasn't limited to just oak. The look on Maple was called frosted. WoodMode / Brookhaven still offer the finish - it's called Champagne.

I suspect that in the future the same will be said of the miles and miles of simulated wood LVT that people seem to adore.

I enjoyed all the comments!! You are SO right about today’s shiplap, etc. being laughable in several years! I always thought pickled oak was a chemical process therefore hard to paint? Glad to hear some success stories. No, we didn’t end up buying the home. I can’t imagine pink flooring and trim etc. it was overwhelming to think of re-doing all of that. :) I honestly always wondered in the original installation if it was always pink-ish or that was a product of time. Thanks all!

Originally "pickled" wood was lime treated. Although that bleaching process did tend to tint things more grey or even slightly greenish (especially if it was white oak). The revival in the 80's was much more prone to use a whitewash or pigment stain to get the effect. So, while you would need to be a little careful restaining limed wood, 1980's "pickled" finishes shouldn't be a big deal. Even less of a big deal to sand the trim and paint it.

Nobody addressed the big issue in the original post. Miami Vice was in the 80s, not the 90s.

My smiley fell out of my post! Don’t want anyone to think I’m serious...

I assumed the OP was too young to have known that. And I did not point it out because I wished for people to assume that I, too, am too young to have known that... ;-)

I watched the original Lost In Space and Batman in first run Prime Time. OUCH!

What were they thinking?

The same thing people will be saying about white shaker cabinets, painted brick fireplaces , barnwood, and ship lap in the future. Fads die.

Ackcx3 - oh man, you’re right. Miami Vice was in the 90s. I should have known because I had a cat named Tubbs. :).

Some of it started out pink-ish and sometimes,yes, the varnish has made it more pink over time. I have seen it re-appearing here and there on design blogs. Usually with a flat matte finish.

I have a pickled oak kitchen. I hate it and intend to paint it in the near future. However, SO many people who come in my house say how much they love my kitchen and ask if we just had it done. I always assume they’re asking not because they like it, but because they want to know why on earth I would have picked such a hideous finish!! Haha

I just can't get over how unappetizing the very term "pickled oak" is.

A bit late to the conversation but I really like pickled oak if it doesn’t veer too pink. Everyone wants to repaint but I like it. All the 90s stuff is coming back around.

Weird thing - while wood as material never goes out of style, at the same time, nothing ages more quickly then wood finish that is currently in trend.

Glad to have found this thread. We’re about to refinish our oak floors and I was thinking about a natural stain or... pickled! I’d never considered that it may go pink! Will need to think on this more now!

Alas, that was the craze of the time....ugly as it looks now. You should probably just plan on a good budget for refinishing ugly wood. Buy the house that is right in the ways that count, and discount your offer price by $8K to pay for professional refinishing. The seller probably hates it, too.

The 90s was not a prime decorating decade. I stuck with cottage style and stayed away from the ugliness of that period, but many friends had feather-duster and sponge painted walls. I've always gone with more natural colors. I don't know why anyone would want grey walls or furniture. The only grey walls I ever loved were the outside walls and front porch floors of an old cypress cabin I saw while driving down a back road in Florida.

I have ca 1955 red oak parquet flooring (glued down with mastic), and I didn't want to get the yellow-ish color that happens after applying a clear finish. Without my knowledge the contractor used minwax pickled oak stain, which seems like just a thinned out white paint. Are my floors going to turn pink?! Help! I still have time to refinish them because they scraped up the LR moving appliances and trash, that we have to re-do it. (He is out of business now). The rest of the apartment floor looks good still, approx 3-4 months after it was finished. No pink-ish coloration.