Hi all,

I may just need some reassurance here. I do a lot of projects and pretty successfully but I've got myself kind of intimidated with what I'm working with.

Here's what I'm working with: https://imgur.com/a/tLftJBE

This house is on plat books from 1893. I'm pretty sure the floor is longleaf heart pine. We are in Illinois. I have some short sections of the wood we had to remove to run ductwork to the second floor and if I recall, it says Malvern and Arkansas. I just pulled carpet from the second floor (see pictures) and despite all the paint, this is just perfect.

At first I thought it could be a screen and recoat, but I don't think that's possible because there are areas where there were pet accidents or spills and the color of the wood is pale or bare looking. Therefore, I think I need to sand it down, correct? There's also subtle color variation due to where rugs would have been etc., that bother me less than the spots.

I am thinking about using Bona. I want to keep the wow factor this floor has (to me, anyway) with the color and variations within planks, but I also don't want to adulterate what I've got, so instead of ClassicSeal, maybe Amber Seal? (but I've heard it really doesn't do too much color either) and Bona Mega on top.

What sort of shade am I likely to end up with? Here's a refinished example photo--will it be like this with what I've got planned? This is kind of pale but I'd be ok with this. I think I read this floor darkens with age, but that may not happen with the Bona stuff. Or do you want to recommend different products?

Second, I've read a lot on Pete's Hardwood Floors that recommends screening between coats of Mega. I was going to rent equipment from Menards, but I can't find screens there or at Lowes/Home Depot. I can definitely buy them online but have to figure out if the Menards people actually know the size of their buffer, etc. to order the right stuff. We also have some other rental places (local family owned, SunBelt, etc.) that I just haven't talked to yet because I'm still planning. Is there a magic phrase that unlocks sanding screens for the machine at the local big box stores?

(This makes me feel better--I have a second house I'm working on right now with average 1920s oak flooring and what will be at best a rustic pine upstairs. I'll do at least the oak in that house first to get technique down.)

Thanks for any help, advice, handholding, etc.

I think that you ought to clean and re-coat the varnished floor. The color is beautiful. You would spend some time to get any patches missing color, but it would be part of the history of the house. It's a lot of work cleaning and preparing to another coat of finish, but if the vainsh is in as good a shape as it looks it would be less work than refinishing. Sanding and staining to get the color that should go with the architecture would require professional workmanship.. The light color of "natural" water-based poly-urethane would not look as rich as the color that you have now.
If the varnish is not chipping you should check into Basic Coatings Tykote method of recoating your floor.

Thank you so much for the feedback, I've investigated the Tykote products and wanted to come back with more questions. I think I mentioned I'm comfortable doing lots of home improvement things but spending time on this floor, I'm not even sure I know how to actually clean hardwood.

So this house is a rental as I can't afford to just collect, and the previous tenants were DIRTY. Upstairs was under carpet and has a bunch of paint on it but is clean-ish. Downstairs was not under carpet and I'm guessing has some dirt in blemishes that clear up with hand scrubbing. Some questions:

Downstairs. I scrubbed (not hard pressure, just vigorous back and forth) for about 40 seconds with a sponge intended for dishwashing. This is the dirt ground into the finish, I think. It gets it clean but this is SLOW going. Would the Tykote cleaners make this faster? Would a rental buffer be appropriate?
https://i.imgur.com/OT0aGSD

This is the part of the half room downstairs I've cleaned:
https://imgur.com/oGbpdDG It feels very nice and smooth but I don't think there's a lot of top coat on the wood.

Upstairs:
Using the scrubby and a painter's tool, I removed paint. Before the last tenants I experimented with various solvents downstairs and felt like they were too hard on the finish. By hand works, but again, buffer? Or another solvent type product you would recommend?
https://i.imgur.com/j1OKdJ4
https://i.imgur.com/93u0Gq0

With these close up pictures, do you still think the Tykote? If it's not perfect, but it protects, the goal can be to later bring in a professional and spend more money on it, but ideally this house would get stabilized and rented again as I'm in the middle of a big rehab.

Some of your flooring looks perfect, or much better than would look if it was refinished to bare wood. The stained areas, where someone did not care for the floor, could happen even if the floor was refinished. The stained areas would look much better if the old finish that has a surface stain was scrubbed off. I used a blue scrubbing pad with some abrasive grit to scrub with a buffer to take off some of the oxidized finish from the surface to make it clean. This will sometimes make the floor a little lighter. The cleaning, really scrubbing, that it takes to get the floor ready for re-coating would never be done by a contractor. Comparing this type of work to the re-finishing would not be worth it for some. If your floor looks as good as it can by just cleaning, I would spend the time. Remember that most of these floors only have one layer, without the sub-floor, so each sanding will leave the floor thinner and finally there will be splinters from the top of the groove braking from normal traffic after the floor is sanded thin enough for the nails starting to show.
The modern clear water-based poly-urethane will protect the flooring from wear for a long time. After getting the floor as good as it can look, I recommend that you use Tykote for the primer on the first coat. Then after the first coat dries, apply a second coat to make it last longer, after you have spent so much time on it. The water-based finish will stick to bare wood or clean finish left from the original work.

I have some after photos! The downstairs is done and I'm so happy with the final result!
https://imgur.com/a/tLftJBE

My thoughts on the whole process:
- this was 95-99% prep and 1-5% actual putting on the finish. It definitely took a bit to get the hang of pouring and spreading, and my second coat was a lot better than my first coat, but I was kind of shocked how fast that part went.
- I wish I'd spent a litle more time on fixing color... Based on how the floor looked damp, I knew that fixing the sheen would take care of a lot of the problem. There are some areas where the color isn't 100% but you know what, it's not a new house, it's not wrong for a 130+ year old house.
- the Tykote system seems really complicated on paper and in videos, but the products seemed to do their job and were easy to handle.

My incoming tenants saw the "before" and luckily she had imagination and loved the house anyway. They are really excited about the pictures and I think they'll be very excited to see it in person.

I am probably ready to start clearing out and cleaning the next house with very neglected but solid hardwood and I'm SO EXCITED to work on the floors.

Thank you so much to Pete for answering my questions and helping to make me feel like I could do this.