Noooo! Stop. Pick yourself up some nice General Finishes water-based 'Dead Flat Varnish' finish. Or, Beautiful makes a matte finish, Water based sealer. I think BM actually offers a matte finish now, but I have no experience with it. I'm telling you, though, put this stuff on and you'll wonder if you actually did once it dries. I have also very, very successfully used paint base. Far less expensive! Pick up some Latex, Exterior, FLAT, DARK (sometimes called a 4 or 5) paint base. It goes on white, but dries invisible. I'm not kidding that you'll will be absolutely amazed. I've used Behr and Olympic so far. I used the 1st two items on a door (each side) I left in the yard for a year to get it to chip. Not only did it adhere the chips (like decoupage) but you can't tell how or where. They don't leave a glued-on looking finish. Just invisible. The paint base, I used to make some stuff chippy. I put it all over another door, then used a crackle finish on it. (Protecting the natural wood underneath.) When the crackle dried, I rubbed it with stain and it came out so incredibly cool. But the natural wood was perfect and preserved. So, there are solutions. Teak is a tough one as mentioned because of the oils in it. Definitely use the acetone first. A lot of people who love the "reclaimed wood" look don't realize there are matte finish products available. And I'm not talking satin. I'm talking 3 invisible options here.

Here's a tip on how to determine if you have a leak ... this wont tell you where it is, but will tell you if one exists. Your "experienced" plumber should of done this if they were not able to find an obvious leak in the kitchen. Make sure there is no water running in the house. This means turning off all water inside and outside the house including showers, sinks, washing machines and any appliance that uses water. If you have a sprinkler irrigation system, manually shut it off. Find your water meter. If it's above ground it's usually on the side of the house. If it's underground, it's usually in the front, near the curb, under a metal plate. The meter has a dial with some numbers and usually a small triangle. If either the triangle is spinning or the hand on the dial is moving you are currently using water and thus have a leak. If neither is happening, take a close look at the current position of the hand. Wait 15 minutes and look at the dial again. If the hand moved, you have a small leak. If you do have a leak, I would suggest you first check the toilet before fretting about the kitchen. It's very common for there to be a leak in the toilet flapper that does no damage (just wastes water). Flush the toilet as normal and while the tank is refilling with water and 3 drops of food coloring. Check the toilet bowl in half an hour. If you see color in the bowl, you have a leak that will probably be fixed simply by replacing the flapper. Fix any toilet leaks and then repeat the meter test to see if there may be leaks anywhere else.

from wikipedia (fwiw): "The term "pumpkin" as it applies to winter squash has different meanings depending on variety and vernacular. In many areas, including North America and the United Kingdom, "pumpkin" traditionally refers to only certain round, orange varieties of winter squash, predominantly derived from Cucurbita pepo, while in Australian English, "pumpkin" can refer to winter squash of any appearance." I was shocked to learn that pumpkins are fruits. Colleen, are you still in western Aus? When I was going thru my bookmarks, I found yours. :) I keep waiting for someone from Australia to weigh in on the Light Between Oceans. :)

Thanks for all the very helpful comments! I really liked the idea of using shellac and Zinsser SealCoat pre-mixed, dewaxed shellac looked like a really promising product, however, it is super hard to find right now (at least in Canada). It's either a COVID related manufacturing problem, or I think I read somewhere that there was a bad crop of lac beetles...! So I was ready to explore mixing shellac from flakes, but getting the right alcohol was proving a bit difficult too and would all have to be ordered online without the option of doing a small sample first. I was at Benjamin Moore and chatting with the lady who worked there and she suggested a water-based floor varnish by Saman (a Canadian brand I think). Just letting some samples dry right now, but it is looking promising! I'd be happy to hear if anybody else has had experience with varnish, I'm feeling like it might be a "too good to be true" situation. Seems to kind of be like a sweet spot between shellac and polyurethane (although it seems quite similar to poly from what I can tell/read). Because there's big cracks in between the subfloor boards, and nothing between there and the ceiling below, we're putting down an underlayment in hopes of creating a bit of a barrier (in the event of spilling water, for example, it would just go straight down to the ceiling below), minimize impact noise and keep the dust below the subfloor contained. Spent a ton of time researching alternatives to flooring paper underlayment for top-nail, plank wood floors, so just wanted to say thanks to @SJ McCarthy for their contributions on other posts which were very helpful. I've ordered QuietWalk and hoping that will fit the bill. QuietWalk Plus wasn't available in Canada but we don't need any moisture protection from the subfloor so hopefully QuietWalk will suffice. I called the manufacturer and they indicated it should be OK. Eventually we'll probably add insulation between the floors (it will likely have to be blow in from what I understand, since I don't want to rip out the ceiling and the subfloors upstairs can't be lifted because they span across load bearing walls) to help with soundproofing, but hopefully the QuietWalk will help reduce impact noise a bit. My husband and I spent a couple days removing 90 years worth of headless nails and tacks. Now we'll be spending the long weekend steaming the boards to try and close any small holes, then wood filler, making wood plugs, gluing knots and more sanding. Sometimes it seems silly to spend so much time on these low-quality boards, but I like that they're wood from a different era and can't imagine ripping them up and throwing them out. Nova Scotia forests are being clear-cut across the whole province, so I think it's worth the effort to salvage what we have instead of buying new if we don't really need to. Thanks again for the suggestions and feedback!