look at Bona Amber Seal. Very easy to use and gives a nice amber tone without looking stained. Don't know about compatibility withother finishes, I've only used it with Traffic

Anything you use to finish your floor will impart what we call the "wetting effect"...

Although you've got the polywhey planned for your job, perhaps look into getting a sample of the Bona Naturale finish system to see what that might do to the boards' natural colors. Naturale is supposed to give a natural look, as if there is no film-forming product on the floor at all.

That's all I got, other than to suggest going into laboratory mode and experimenting with the white stain media...and that will open a can of worms for you for sure!

I see that your floor is mostly white oak with some red thrown in. It is going to be awesome when finished. Expect the vivid look to remain. Nothing will mask the board color variations, except masking with a whitish stain.

If you use a waterbourne polyurethane, make sure it is a quality product and one that claims it will resist what we call "tanin pull" ...otherwise you can wind up with a floor with a greenish tint.

Good luck.

Thanks to both of you! I'm going to see what I can find out about the Bona Naturale this morning! Wish I would have found that before buying 5 gallons of the Polywhey. I never even thought about searching for a matte finish, but I think I would love it. We're very happy with how well the planing and reinstall turned out, so glad we decided to salvage it all instead of just ripping it out and throwing it in the dumpster! And I LOVE the mixture of the wood and seeing all of the variations, it's just the glossy (even though I bought satin) and yellow/pink that scare me. I just keep telling my husband I wish we didn't have to put anything on it because I love it just as it is. Ya know, I was pretty sure that was a mixture of red/white oak, but my father gave me a very funny look when I told him that's what it was, lol. Thanks for confirming that for me ;) Hopefully I can find the Bona Naturale around here (near St. Louis, MO) and they will sell it to me without having to use a contractor.

Go to the Bona website for information about Naturale and to obtain a list of distributors. Although Bona frowns on DIY sales, because it is a professional use product, I see no reason why a smart DIYer could not get acceptable results. If you can read and follow directions to the "T"...you can get acceptable results.

Unfortunately, my advice is that you must "test" to see if the results will be what you're after (that is what I do when setting up a custom job for a customer)...and that can expensive in product cost for the DIYer. To my knowledge Bona does not sell small quantities for testing. However, the technical folks over at Bona can be very helpful, even to DIYers, so consider giving them a call for advice regarding their products and what you want to do.

I would recommend using Bona Seal and Bona Novia.