Part of the charm of pumpkin pine (or heart pine) is the orange. So you probably don't want to eliminate all of it.

However, you could use water-based products (rather than poly) as the top coats, which would reduce the orange.

Start with a water based polyurethane. A 'clear coat' poly will offer a NON-YELLOWING finish. Part of the orange (50% - 70%) is the finish. The old oil based polyurethanes turn ORANGE as they age. We call this ambering.

The clear coat products such as Bona Traffic HD, StreetShoe by Basic, Loba 2K Supra AT will give you a NON-ORANGE finish. That reduces the colour you see by half...or more.

Pine does not like to take a stain, so I suggest loving the pine for what it is rather than trying to stuff it into a "trendy box" to make it sing for it's supper.

Many people would kill for original floors like those. If you want to see what those floors will look like without the orange finish, go ahead and sand a plank to the raw wood, and then use a water-damp rag and wipe down the fresh wood. That is the 'depth' of colour you can expect from a water-based polyurethane.

Thanks so much for this great information! We do love the floors. Just thinking of ways to highlight their age and beauty while toning down some of the orange. Here are some pics I found online of pine floors from a Victorian townhome (1880s). Do you think we would achieve this look with a water poly or would a stain be required get this look

The multiplied floor is not going to happen. The very light planks in the last photo is the colour you might achieve with water based. Without seeing raw wood, we are just guessing.

Thanks! What do you mean by multiplied. And seriously thank you for taking the time to explain this to a layperson! Really appreciate it. Also wondering if you’re a fellow Canadian 😉 noticed how you spelled colour which is how I used to spell it up until I moved to the US

Sorry - darn auto correct. Multi coloured floor. That means the planks are many different colours. You do not have that much 'movement' as we say. Your floors are very uniform.

Yep. CA. Livin' the dream in the liquid sunshine of happy Vancouver land (sigh....give me Alberta with 300+ days of sunshine and -30 in the winter!).

TTFN

Stephanie

The multi color look can only be obtained with newly installed reclaimed flooring. Your antique floors will not look like that. All the images shown are with some type of oil finish - oil poly, tung oil or penetrating oil. If, you want a light tone. Refinish and apply Loba invisible. It will still have some warmth but, not as intense as with oil finishes. If, you want to step it up a notch. Apply a white penetrating oil that can be top coated with a two part water base finish. Craft oil/Traffic HD, Loba Intensive stain/Supra AT or Ciranova Unico/Fortico 2C.