We have color! I am in LOVE with the Pallmann's Magic Oil finish we put down. Because I was trying to avoid a strong odor during the refinishing since we would be staying in the house during the process (sleeping downstairs), I decided to go with a colored Pallmann's Magic Oil rather than staining using Minwax or DuraSeal first then using the clear Pallmann's. To find a color I liked, I ordered several samples of Pallmann's from the distributor that is closest to me, in Dallas, and the samples are called "pucks." I got black, dark brown, and red brown. Straight out of the can, the colors weren't what I was looking for, but when I started mixing them, I found a great combo. I just took a plastic solo cup and a plastic teaspoon and mixed in various ratios until I got what I wanted. First was 3 spoonfuls of dark-brown and 1 of black, but that was too dark, so I added 2 more spoonfuls of dark brown (for a 5:1 ratio) and that was perfect. I was also mindful of how much total finish I needed to buy (6 liters for my project) so tried to mix in ratios that would minimize waste, and 5:1 was perfect for that. We mixed all six of the Part A containers (colored oil) in a 5 gallon bucket and stirred thoroughly, then used a small measuring container (from the paint section of HD) to measure out a small amount of the colored oil to mix with the Part B (accelerant) which is what makes it harden to a very durable finish. I think the colored Pallmann's has a different ratio of Part A to Part B than the clear, but just follow the directions on the box. Ours was 4:1, I think, so I would fill the container up 16 ounces with color, then top off to 20 ounces with the accelerant, stir with a stir stick, then trowel apply per the directions and video UFloor (the distributor/mfr.) has on YouTube. To prep, we screened the entire floor upstairs at 100 screen (we'd sanded it previously with a sanding sequence of 60, 80, 120 but had a week's worth of foot traffic and moving the last bits of furniture out so wanted to make sure the wood fibers were all the same to accept the stain evenly. Perhaps overcautious, I don't know). Screening is MUCH harder than using the vibrating square buff sander - it took lots of muscle to figure out how to control the buffer. There were a few times initially where I didn't think we were going to be able to do it - mostly when the buffer was going airborne like an ice skater doing a triple Lutz. Eventually got it under control, but managed to leave lots of marks on our freshly painted walls from the buffer handle pushing us around. Got some touch up to do. It looks so easy on YouTube but it was HARD! Then, we swept up tons of sawdust. Then, we shopvacced all the dust we could, carefully carrying around our shop vac canister so it wouldn't leave wheel marks on the floor's fibers. (Again, overcautious much?) We tacked the floor with old towels misted with paint thinner. This was stinky but my husband did it while I was at Home Depot exchanging our buffer for a new one - the first one's wheel was messed up and it was really annoying to work with. All the prep work takes forever, but I figured it was better to do it now than spend two months installing the floors and messing them up in the final stretch. Before sanding and screening, we also had taped over all the light switches, electrical outlets, covered vents and air returns - and turned off the heat - taped plastic over the ceiling fans and lights, removed all the blinds, etc, and then removed all that stuff so that when we were doing the clean up, all the sawdust would be on the floor so we could get it up before we applied the finish. OK, still with me? We are back to applying the finish. We started with the side rooms so that if we had to stop, we could end along a doorway with a full plank of wood. The first room we trowel applied - I used the trowel (which was a 10" stainless steel drywall trowel that I just took a piece of sandpaper and rounded the edges on) for the majority of the floor and my husband took a piece of the buffer pad and did the edges - like cutting in when you are painting a room. We got about 1/3 through the room and needed to stop and buff (there is a time limit on how long the product is workable, we set our phone's alarm and stopped to buff whenever it was time). The first bit was frantic as I was really worried about hurrying and the time and everything, but I calmed down soon enough and figured out this is a marathon, not a sprint. We followed the buffing sequence the instructions specified and didn't have much problem, The first buff is really "grippy" and you need to use some muscle to control the buffer or it will throw you around. The final buffs with the white pads were pretty easy, and I did those to give my husband a break. Per the tip from the Pallmann rep, we applied two coats back-to-back before moving on to the next room. Trowel application: The second room, we thought we'd try the other application method, the buffer method instead of hand-troweling. Big mistake! Maybe if we were more experienced with the buffer we could have done better, but as it was, that buffer through us both around like a rodeo bull. Grabbing the liquid oil made it really careen around, no matter how carefully or lightly we dipped into the oil pool. I had the honor of putting the first hole in the drywall - at which point DH thought he'd better take over. He was doing better than me at first, but then the buffer got the best of him and he put two more holes in the drywall in the same room! We decided to finish that room using the buffer method but to go back to troweling after that. There is no real difference in how the finished product looks, and it really wasn't faster to do the buffer with the way it was flinging us around. The only thing was my wrist was practically crippled by the end of the project, as we did almost 1500 sf in a 10 or 12 hour marathon. I was switching from left to right hand, and DH even had to take a turn troweling, but I've had to wear my wrist brace all week to give my poor arm a chance to rest. This is reaching the length of a novel, so I will just post some more pictures of the final product. We still need to do the stairs (at 2:30am we called it quits because we needed to get up for work in four hours) and baseboards and shoe molding, so these aren't the final final product, but we are getting close. It's been an adventure! We did have a few problem areas that we need to address, I will come back and post about that soon. Buffer application: Back to troweling:

Hi Carol, I am pretty sure you are looking for a floating wood floor with UV Oil finish: low VOC, flat sheen, low maintanence. White Oak Fineline IdealLoc Engineered Floating Wood Floor should be a good fit for your need. See it in the link below. Thank you! Here is a link that might be useful: White Oak Fineline UV Oiled Floating Wood Floors

I don't think people are insulting you. Take or not take their advice, it's based in their experience with wood floors and personal taste and preference. Not personal to you. I had the same problem with my pine wood floors. Didn't like the look of the poly with its tone but learned to live with it. It's expensive to treat wood floors and I had trouble finding a good person to work with redoing mine. Then, with the downstairs flooring, while waiting for the several floor refinishers to call me back, I had an epiphany . . . wax. Ye olde Johnson's paste wax. Rub it on, buff, happy for the rest of the year. It's just as good as the poly, and doesn't have to be sanded off if there's something you don't like about it. That was how they did it in the old days and it ain't broke IMHO and it ain't in need of fixing. So much easier and warmer, even than the low shine poly finishes. I had poly upstairs and wax downstairs. Much preferred the wax . . . Mind you I'm no perfectionist and didn't have dogs.

You need to reach out to a TRUE hardwood flooring store...NOT a big-box store. The Lowe's and Home Depots of this world have their own brands....which are simply boxes filled with someone else's flooring. The best deals are to be had from China. A Ma-and-Pa store with 25+ years of experience are going to be your best choice. They will have done everything, seen everything and thrown out all the cr@p mills that have lost their store money. You will NOT find that level of care with 'Timmy' at HD (cause yesterday Timmy had his orientation...before that he worked at a coffee shop). Now...you are looking for EUROPEAN GRADE wood. Yep. That's expensive but it is what you are looking at. The VOC content in the European finishes are MUCH better than anything created in N. America (outside of those mills that will recreate finishes from scratch for a custom order over 2000sf). The 'smell' may not be from the finish. Just remember: floors are cut and TREATED (could be pressure treated) or kiln dried before they are finished. And then they receive their 7 - 15 coats of finish (UV cured finishes with Aluminum Oxide = very common). As SOON as the finish has hardened (within the HOUR...I'm not kidding), they are then BOXED. And BOXES have their own off gassing. And then they are shrink wrapped on a pallet ready for shipment. If those floors are coming from overseas (Europe of Asia), they are then sprayed to prevent the spread of pests to the N. American content. Usually this spray is done for the wooden pallets they are sitting on...but it's for the entire container. Now...I've seen 'bad smelling' or 'chemical smells' coming off of cork flooring yet the entire thing had the same VOC content as a serving of Vinegar. Why? Because they are packaged SOOOOO quickly that the odour or the finish (0 VOC still has odour) has not been removed. Which means the 'smell' is not VOCs...it is just the smell of wood with polyurethane on it. The way around this: Find a LOCAL MILL and have them prepare your wood flooring from scratch and ask for their LOWEST VOC finish they have. Ask them to allow it to properly 'off gas' before it is boxed. You will pay extra for this...but it can be done. The way to find a local mill? Stop in at your local hardwood flooring store and ask your local experts...the owners. They will find something for you...and they will arrange delivery, acclimation and installation for you.