These 100 year old heart pine floors have been through a lot recently. Let’s call it refinishing adventures. Skip forward to now - a very thorough standing, no conditioner, MinWax stain, dry but no poly yet.

Ready to do what we can, if anything, to the areas that didn’t accept the stain evenly, primarily the perimeter under the toekick and some light blotchy areas near the center of the room.

Under the toekick was sanded with a palm sander instead of the drum sander and hardly took the stain at all - it looks medium red-orange instead of the darker red-brown. I’m thinking of trying a gel stain here, building it up slowly to a color that blends in, or at least minimizes, the contrast.

For the light blotchy areas, I’m going to try additional coats of stain but I know that can only take it so far. Could a gel stain be artfully applied over these light areas?

On the other hand, I’m wondering if the entire floor could benefit from a light coat of gel stain. It’s not our goal to make this a perfect, new-looking floor - we just want to see if we can even out the appearance of the stain’s coloring (not necessarily evening out the strong grain because it’s pine and we know that’s what it does).

OR, do we need to change course and embrace a more intentionally rustic-looking floor?