Shilpsb - Overall I like them (Garrison French Connection Provence), I like the natural color and the low sheen...but there are some areas where it does seem like there's a haze although it blends into the different planks. I probably am the only one that can tell! I haven't had problems yet with staining, I just wipe up water as soon as I see it and then clean with the Woca spray whenever I spill anything. I have done the refresher a couple times but have not done the re-oiling... is that a product you can buy? For the rugs, I have put a couple World Market small 2'x3" with the rug mat underneath... they were inexpensive and I just wanted to get something until I can do more decorating - they are too small but they do the trick. What do they say could happen to the floors with rubber backing? I know they say no blue tape, etc... I've been very conscientious with these floors, but they do have a lot of variance in color and look rustic so I'm just going with it. I would rather be eco-friendly anyway. I heard about some at Plastica which are pvc and can wiped clean...http://plasticastore.com/shop/home/moroccan-pattern-mat/

For any finishing procedure it is best to practice the entire process so that you aren't surprised at the end. (I turned a whole maple floor pumpkin orange one time, recovering from that taught a lifelong lesson). Where you don't have a piece of wood that was used in the project you can either use something similar, or an out-of sight part of your bookshelf-- like the bottom or the underneath side of the bottom shelf. Color especially will change as you go through the different finishing steps. Set up a space with good ventilation, as little dust as possible, and excellent, very bright lighting from several sides, with strong sidelighting to allow you to see the surface in detail. Prior to staining, sand to P150-P220 grit using a random orbit sander. (At least P220 if hand sanding) Don't skip any grits and sand until the scratches from the previous grit disappear, they will never go away later, and will pop up like a sore thumb when you apply finish. Vacuum the surface with a brush head and then use a tack rag (either a traditional sticky one of a microfiber rag) to get all the dust you can. Stain, if you need to. I prefer using trans-tint dyes in denatured alcohol, but some people (I'm not one of them) have good success with oil stains. Very lightly hand sand with P320 to knock off any nits. Repeat with the tack rag. Apply a coat of gloss oil-base polyurethane from the can. Use either a good natural bristle brush (Purdy or Wooster make OK ones at $15-20 for a 2-1/2" brush.) Don't mess with cheap brushes, they are pure frustration. Throwaway foam brushes also work well with poly, and may well be your best choice. Buy several and throw them away rather than trying to clean them for re-use. Work quickly to get finish onto a surface, then finish with very light strokes as long as possible with the grain of the board (called "tipping off"). Then stop, don't mess with it any more. Watch for sags ad drips, and catch them before the finish starts to set up. They greatly complicate the rest of the process. Allow the finish to dry thoroughly. Usually several days. You want it to come off as dust when you sand, not globs of glue on your sanding pad. Sand with P220-280 using a ROS, or 320 by hand. Sand until most of your brush marks are gone, nits are removed and the surface is smooth. Do not sand through your stain! Vacuum and tack off your work, and thoroughly clean your work area, then tack off you project again. Apply another coat of clear gloss finish. Allow to dry thoroughly again. Most woods take 3 coats to give a good surface. If you have a good uniform surface you can stop there, otherwise proceed to a third coat. Sand by hand with P320 to take off the nits. This is your "money coat", so become fanatical about dust control and removal. After tacking I will also use a microfiber rag dampened with mineral spirits or denatured alcohol to remove the last of the dust. Apply a third coat of finish. Use gloss if that's what you are aiming for, use a semi-gloss or matte poly if you are shooting for that. The more matte finishes are gloss poly with small particles added to break up the light. They also, to a small extent, obscure the wood. I prefer to use only gloss and then buff to the desired finish level. Allow to dry. If you are happy with what you see you are done. I like to rub out these finishes to give them a smoother more pleasing surface. How much you do is a function of where you want the finish to end up. Getting to a high gloss is a lot of work, and I'm not going to get into that here. Allow the finish to dry completely-- 2-3 weeks at least in most cases, a couple of months is better. (So this is not good as a production method, better suited for weekend warriors) It won't work if the finish is still sticky at all. The idea is to burnish the surface. I start with 0000 steel wool and rub down the entire surface. Strokes with the grain are preferred, you will see shiny spots around the dust motes you missed, rub until these are all gone. Change pads as the surface fills, or re-fold to expose fresh steel wool. The finish should come off as a tiny bit of very fine white dust as you're doing this. You will notice that the surface feels much nicer than it did before. If you'd like a bit more shine you can wax the surface. Do not use grocery store furniture polish. There are a variety of products from woodworking supply places or Amazon that are primarily carnauba wax, softened with beeswax and solvent. Trewax and Briwax are two good brands. Run don't walk from products that don't tell you what's in them, promise miracles, or have any form of silicone. Antique cans of Simonize car wax are also good! Apply the wax to the whole piece then buff with a clean soft cloth (old t shirt or flannel). You will work up a sweat in this process, these are not "instant gratification" products. Once done you are finished and your project will stand up for years of use and abuse. Hope this helps. It's a lot of work and takes a long time, but the results are pretty decent and it's very satisfying. This post was edited by rwiegand on Mon, Jun 2, 14 at 10:09

An oil based penetrating stain/finish...like master oil may be your best bet. I used duraseal penetrating danish oil finish...or something like that...on a teakwood floor once. Oil repells other finishes like polyurthane. Wax is even worse because it doesnt soak into the wood and nothing sticks to wax. Oil eventually wears off or becomes part of the wood cellulose or dries or something. Master oil may work for you but I have never used it so am not sure. My recommendation would be to buy the 59 cent a foot birch-look laminate at Home Depotand lay it right over the parquet. But think about it, parquet is little blocks of wood...not veneered wood but solid wood so it isnt going to wear out like sanding veneer to the strand board layer underneath. Glued down right? It is just a pita because it has all those cracks, there is no grain direction for sanding, and now you’ve oiled it and poly wont stick to oil. Kick the can down the road and cover it with laminate. Or give the master oil a shot. But call a nice old guy at a hardwood supply place for better advice though. There are a couple of hardwood restore product on the home depot website that people have given good reviews for....or maybe that is what you used? Good luck.

I think alot had to do with my "babysitting it" (to the extreme detriment of my already-existent arthritis). I kept at it with that brush & squeegee you see depicted above. I raked & blowed many tons of leaves from 10am. until about 5pm with no break. Re: your John Deere experience, anything you can do i can do better. Years ago, i decided to polyurethane the hardwood floor of this approx. 10'x9' computer room. I lined up a guy who turned out not to know what the heck he was doing. The first part of my nightmare was that the horrible local Walmart personnel lied to me on the phone by lazily stating they don't have Minwax water-based polyurethane in stock. (Afterward i happened to go there, and saw they actually DID have it!) Anyway, suffice that i then went to a closer store, where they just had Ben-Moore oil-based polyurethane. I then watched as the young punk i'd hired merely turned the can upward & downward prior to opening it, so i asked him "isn't it necessary to mix it with a stick"? And he confidently assured me no, he'd done it before with no problems. (He never bothered reading the instructions). Like a fool i trusted him. Result: My house stank toxically for days & it never dried. I needed to get someone over to scrape it off to the tune of $100. As i said, most hiree's i've had over the years were unsatisfactory, and some were downright horrible. The latest whom i contracted for my rotten windows/etc. - i just found out from the local consumer agency that the guy has known problems, and that nearly 20 complaints were put out on him. They said i should get the ball rolling with a formal complaint, including cancelled check, contract, etc. I did that today.