Sanding the wood to a fine grit will close up the grains and help even out the color. Sand the wood to 180, water pop it and then apply the stain.

Yes, they will come and sand the floors with a machine when the time comes. My floors are already done but I hate the color, so that's why I'm getting a company in to sand off the current finish. But I'm trying samples in the meantime on scraps and surprised at how super light they are with conditioner and very very dark when water popped.

Conditioner seals the wood and keeps it light. If, you want dark do not use the conditioner. If, water popping is too dark. You can skip it.

Any tips for how to handle the blotchiness? It seems with no water popping or no conditioner I get an overly "zebra" look too with the grains uneven absorption.

The tip is in my first post. Be sure to use a water base poly due to the extra fine sanding.

Ok, so you say to water pop it then.

Update...guess what happened. When I water popped with other samples, I didn't wait enough so the colors got super dark. But I did another sample and this time I waited 3 hours after water popping and the color came out much lighter.

You are suppose to wait until the water completely dry before you apply stain. Better yet, if, you have a moisture meter, wait until the MC level returns back to the original reading prior to water popping. The dry time can be anywhere from 1 hour to overnight. The longer the better to prevent water marks in the stain, since some parts of the wood is more porous than others. Never mix chemicals, yes, water is considered a chemical.

Thanks so much! So helpful. I was wondering why light-medium browns were coming out espresso.

And pine really hates to take a stain....so you are working up hill with this one. I'm guessing your current 'colour' is a STRONG orange colour, right? Yah. That's the OIL BASED finish. If you simply move to a water based finish (not OIL MODIFIED) poly you should come up with a pretty light yellow floor.

Yes, I didn't color it the first time around. They put a sealer on it and a cheap oil based poly. It's all super yellow and orange. So we are gonna sand it down. Then I'm going for a medium brown I hope. Unfortunately, I have to do it DIY cause no one in my country really gets me when I tell them I don't want the orange and I want a water based poly. I did find water based poly here and will use that. I've read either super light color or a dark color will be more uniform on pine but a medium color may look bad on pine--showing all the stripes etc. Is that true?

Did I do a terrible job? This is a special walnut color. I'm deciding if I should really go DIY or just get someone to do it. If they do it though, they will use different materials and mix a custom color, so I won't really get to choose the exact shade.

The flooring company will sand with machine. But the rest I will do. they don’t know about water popping or conditioner and they only use cheap oil based polys. Im based in a country where I cannot really find anyone who uses water based poly. Also no one believes pine is hard to stain here. so im giving the sanding job to them, they will do it very fine. But the rest I hope is possible diy. Am I fooling myself? But my sample here is much better than some samples I have seen them make.

The toughest part is the sanding. Flaws are mainly from the sanding. Water popping and applying the stain is easy, regardless what type of wood specie.

After they finish sanding, inspect it with a light. Not sure how many square feet you are working with. But have a hand held orbital sander on hand for fixes. I prefer the 6" Festool Rotex. Do not be surprised, if, you have to do a final sand with the orbital. Doing a final sand on softwood isn't easy. Sanding swirls are easily put into it. Finishing with the hand held is ideal.

What country are you in?

Thanks you all have been so helpful. I wanted to know is it ok to just do those two steps: stain then poly. I have one guy I can hire here but his protocol is after sanding to rub stain in and I guess it's water based as it's some powders mixed with water (and done without water popping or conditioning), then a coat of sealer, then this shellac type amber-ish layer they do then oil based poly. Is it ok I just used an oil based stain from a can then water poly after? I'm not sure I like their protocol or if it's better than my understanding.

He is describing aniline dye in a powdered form. Yes, that would work. The shellac is needed for a water base poly application to prevent reactivating and moving the dye around. If, you do not want to use the shellac. Use a oil base poly over it. It doesn't sound like your country lacks the resource if, aniline dye is available. You need to find out where to buy it. You can search for Bona, Durarseal, Poloplaz (low VOC) or Basic Coating (low VOC) stains.

We only have Varathane and minwax. Actua I don’t think it is shellac, it is a sort of old thing they do on pine since years ago, some type of oil thing that also gives another layer of color and is amber like. But I don’t know the translation. can I just use oil based stain then when cured use a water based poly finish? I don’t want to bother with sealer and shellac.

Yes, you can do oil stain and water base poly. Allow the stain to dry for a minimum of 24 hours before coating.

To the one who commented that I'm fooling myself, I'm not. I'm ok with orange and amber, as long as it's darker than what I have now. I currently have bright light yellow and orange floors cause we didn't stain them ever, just sealed and finished them. I'd rather stain and get a deeper amber/orange tone to the brown I use. To me that's more what I'm going for rather than the unstained super light yellow/orange look.