We are gutting and redoing my in laws old house. We helped them install a pine floor about 10 years ago and it was beautiful. It was great for them, living here alone with just grandchildren and great-grandchildren visiting. We moved in exactly one year ago this month to continue the remodel while living here and hubby and I said "at least there is one floor in the house we don't have to re-do". Then my 2 and 3 year old spent time on the pine floor. Now, we have decide to pull it out and put in a hardwood. The other option (and we have seriously considered this one and may still do it) is to take a few have duty chains and go to town beating the heck out of the floor until you can't tell what it new damage and what may have been done a hundred years ago. Since the house is 300 years old, we may be able to get away with this. On the bright note, the floor does not splinter and snag, it just dents and gouges.

Interesting technique Oasis, I'll have to try that some time. I would add that the number of times I have had beans that did not eventually soften has been maybe one or two times in my lifetime. Once I got a crockpot I started doing my beans in that on weekends, and then freezing the cooked beans for later use. Has worked like a charm and has saved me some money over canned and better taste. I freeze in glass pint jars, doesn't pick up that "tinny" taste that canned beans sometimes get. I still use the canned ones sometimes though. But I forgot about the hard water issue too, that could be a problem. The one time I did have the terminally hard beans was pintos. Maybe they don't turn over as fast as other varieties. My experience with acid was back when I was just starting out and I didn't know any better and threw all the raw ingredients for black bean soup into a big pot (including dried black beans and the vinegar) and cooked it for a VERY long time and couldn't understand why it never worked out, until someone told me about the acid thing. I even put it all in a blender hoping that would help soften them! I was making the pot for a huge community event and needed the soup to serve so I was making it on my stovetop the night before. I left it cooking for hours, overnight, did the blender thing and then cooked it over an open fire for a little bit longer. The only thing I ended up with was crunchy black bean soup with a burned taste. Luckily I was one of three people who were assigned to make the soup!

I will eat liver of almost any sort...but I would prefer not to be the one that cooks it. But that is as far as I will go with organ meats. But now that I have read the part about "the liver cleans everything in the system...I like to know what's coursed through my organ meat", I may never eat it again. And this statement also made me rethink how much I love Rocky Mountain Oysters. LOL I will not eat any wild game. I have tried many different game meats...deer, elk, raccoon, bear, possum, duck, rabbit, wild boar...the list goes on. I am just not crazy about that "wild" taste. And it doesn't matter if it's been soaked in milk or whatever else they try to de-wild it with. :) I will also not eat tripe or sea urchin (had one in our salt water aquarium and just can't feature that). *shudder* I won't touch tuna...from a can, raw or otherwise. Tuna from a can looks and smells just like cat food to me. And when we were little, my older sister was responsible for feeding us dinner. She made tuna noodle casserole over and over and over. She was 10 and no one taught her (or any of us) to cook, so she is forgiven. We were even known to have saltine crackers crushed up in a bowl with Kool Aid on them. And most other fish is not appealing to me. Shellfish, however, is another matter. And milk. I will not drink milk. I read once that humans are the only mammal on Earth that drinks milk past the weaning stage. Milk is the one thing that will make me gag should I consider raising a glass to my lips. And watching someone else drink it? Ewwww SHUDDER. However, I will cook with it. Weird...I know. Other than that, I will eat just about anything and will at least try just about anything...once. I am sure I will think of something later that I won't eat. And we were raised by a step dad that forced us to eat everything on our plates. Everything. I never, ever made my kids eat something they didn't want to...and they are great eaters now.

I am not a botanist, or even an expert in any kind of wood "ology", but I have bumped into similar situations. It sounds like you may have encountered issues from two fronts: Different manner of harvesting (cutting) the wood, and possibly even different wood species. How a stain reacts to each of these conditions can be quite unique, even with a pre-conditioner. I have found pre-conditioners to help make stain appearance more consistent across a specific "type" of board, but not as helpful across different types or species. When cutting wood from a log, different methods are used depending on the type of product they are trying to make. For wainscot (or plywoods in general), it is desireable to have a wide, flat, thin piece of wood. This can be made by either by joining several flat sawn pieces together at the edge, or by actually peeling the log like an apple skin. The grain created by these two methods are quite different and will take stain quite differently. Peeling can produce large areas of the same layer in the log's growth rings. My guess is that the "goldy" sheen you are referring to is in the harder, summer layer which does not take a stain very well; while the surrounding wood soaks it up like a sponge (very dark). On the other hand, the moulding pieces and flat stock were likely harvested in the simple flat-sawn manner. The mouldings probably have the grain going perpendicular to the face (works better when routing or cutting contours), while the flat stock has it running mosty flat. Again, these cuts can setup conditions that make the absorbing of stain very different. Another thing you could be dealing with, is that PINE is not just PINE. There are several species, each with their own characteristics. Sometimes with mouldings they only classify between hardwood and softwood which leaves a lot open to interpretation. So that might help with how you got here, but doesn't do beans to help with your current problem:-( You can try sanding the flat stock as others have suggested; that's probably not an option with the mouldings though. You can try a solution of laundry bleach or wood bleach (oxacylic acid) to see if that pulls enough color out. Keep in mind that both of these methods will likely raise the grain so let it dry completely and sand smooth before trying to adjust the color or put on any finish. If you decide to start over, here are some ideas to avoid the same pitfalls. - Gel stains. These are much easier to control and do not "soak right in" the way typical oil stains do. You sometimes have to "rub" these in a bit to get the desired look. You can also let a thin layer actually just "dry" right on surface of the wood, if you can't get it to soak or rub into the wood. - One-coat "varnish stains" (Minwax calls these Polyshades) can give better color control, but has a tendency to hide the grain detail. Use additional coats of the "varnish stain" to get a darker effect. Once you have the color you like, you can add additional topcoats (if needed) of clear varnish without affecting the color. Be careful sanding between coats of varnish stain, as the color is mostly in the varnish coat and not soaked into the wood. I have used this method many times on windows where the casings were made of PINE, but the trim is Oak. I've also used it on woods that don't take stains well like Maple. - You have probably already realized this, but experiment on the actual woods that you are using. You may very well find that you need to apply a different treatment to each "type" of wood to get the same (or at least acceptable) color. This actually happens to me often when I'm building cabinetry and mixing the use of both solid woods and veneer plywoods. Not as bad with Oak, but with woods like Pine and Maple, I like to steer toward either no stain at all, or toward red/mahogany. The brown/black seems harder to control. I even do this when purposely substituting different wood types for durability reasons. I hope that helps. I've felt the same frustration as you. Good luck with your project. Jim