Do you think southern yellow pine is the same thing as heart pine? I am looking for heart pine in an engineered. I'm not sure why you would want it unfinished, unless you want an oil finish. From what I have learned, an on site finish would never be as good as a tough factory finish.

msdrzewi, I have very similar floors(grain) that I am going to install in my kitchen this week. I would be very interested to see what you end up using. I just refinished my old maple floors with semi gloss polyurethane. It was pretty easy and looks good. I had my wife and baby daughter out of the house for a few days and that was helpful. It seems like anything you put down will stink. You will be happy you refinished the floors once the little one is crawling.

I have to say in regards to Waterlox: it is a wonderful finish when first applied. For the record I have laid yellow/heart pine and used poly to finish, I laid 900sq' of eastern white pine and covered with Waterlox. We built our own home 4 years ago and used waterlox original on the entire 900sq' of the downstairs. It gave is a yellow orange tint which is eactly what we wanted. It did darken over the 3 years we lived there as when we moved last week and lifted the rugs there was a very noticable difference in coloration. Application was horrible. I used a quality paint respirator in january. Since it was cold I had the windows closed. Eyes burned so I used goggles. When I would take the respirator off to readjust etc the fumes almost knocked me out. After the 4 coats over 2 days I shut up the house (opened windows at timed intervals to allow new air in). About 3 weeks later we moved in and could still smell the waterlox. A few days before we sold our house I did some touchup work since our yellow lab left several claw marks down below the finish. I simply put a little waterlox on a rag and applied by hand the 1'x1' area. You could smell it upstairs with the door closed. We had to open windows in january. Waterlox finish very much resembles poly. It never chipped on us but had the same type of appearance with the scratches. Repairs. Don't let anyone fool you. If you have a dog scratch your floor and it is deep you now have fresh unstained, unweathered wood showing. It will look very white next to the tinted weathered finish. You can apply new waterlox but it will not tint the scratches to match the finished side adjacent to it. It will reseal it and tint it a bit but you are going to see the scratches. Not as bad a poly, but you will see them clearly. Fast forward. Economy goes bad, decide to sell our home and purchase a cheaper fixer upper and try to pocket a little cash in case of job loss. The new home has pergo, yuck. I have already found a dealer for red pine this time. (should be a bit harder than the eastern white pine we had in the last home.) Plan on installing red pine in the entire house less the 2 bathrooms. Equates to about 2000sq'. The big debate. Tongue oil or more waterlox. We did lover the finish of the Waterlox and always got great compliments on the floor from guests. I don't really want to evict my family(young child) from the home for 7-10 days while the new finish gases off while drying. I have heard mixed reviews on the citrus solvent as being almost as bad for you as mineral spirits. I loved the finish of the waterlox and it did bead up nicely and cleaned well. I have never used the tongue oil and hope I am not making a mistake by taking that route. We love the matte finish of the waterlox along with the slippery feel to it. Does the tongue oil leave a smooth slippery texture also or do you feel the wood grain more? I have used a marine based tongue oil on a boat I built and that was not something I would want to walk on every day.

Your going to have to do more than a light sanding to use a penetrating oil.