I’ve never posted on here, and didn’t expect to write such a long post, but I am just feeling desperate to find the right finish. I’ve spent hours researching and don’t feel confident I’ve found what will work.

We are not usually into DIY but my husband and I are restoring the original plank floors in the upstairs floor of our 90-year-old home (amidst a larger reno). We have been told that they are likely spruce.

Before we bought it, the house had major damage because the roof blew off during a storm! This meant everything inside has been pretty much gutted and replaced (including plumbing and electrical, the silver lining for us!) and not much of the original fixtures and features remain, except for the doors, stairs, and as we discovered, floors. Because they're one of the few remaining original parts of the house, we wanted to salvage them.

They were covered in many other materials, including mastic in one small room, and the boards were painted. The companies we had come see/quote said they wouldn’t do the sanding because it was most likely lead paint. So, my husband tackled the mastic, scraping by hand, and he and his uncle did the sanding (following the proper protocol for lead).

The damage:

The boards were, and are, pretty beat up. So bad in some places that we’ve had to replace some of them with new wood, that doesn’t fully match. We lifted about 40% of the boards to give them individual TLC because the damage varied board-to-board. And my husband ended up flipping some boards and sanding down the rough side because the right side was not salvageable. There is/was a lot of oxide stains(?) from nails and I’ve spent many hours bleaching them out with oxalic acid, but realistically, I can’t/won’t get it all out. There’s also lots of brad nails peppered throughout that are really hard to get out, so that means that we will probably have to leave some in the wood. The original top nails are still in place for 60% of the boards and we plan to top nail the rest, through the existing holes but without hiding/burying the nails.

Mastic and paint

Mastic, mid-removal (scraping)

Mastic/paint, mid-sanding

Hall with some paint (there must've been a runner) and mastic behind him

Bedroom with layers of flooring, newspaper and paint

Living room, mid-sanding

Initial sanding finished

Re-configuring part of the layout to blend in new boards

Getting closer

Some of the 90 years of dirt stuck between the boards

The problem:

I can’t decide / figure out how to finish the boards. Added difficulty to the problem is that most of the products I’d like to consider aren’t carried by any distributors where I live (Nova Scotia), so I can’t easily get samples.

What I would like:
I really like the boards just as they are, with the flat-looking grain, and I like the reddish/peachy colour they have developed since their original sanding. I know they won’t ever be perfect, but I’d REALLY like to NOT highlight every imperfection, and that’s what I seem to be having the most difficulty avoiding. I’d like to keep them as “plain” or raw (looking) as possible. The boards are actually much lighter, slightly pinker, and with less contrast/grey than these photos.

What I don’t want:

Even though I accept that the boards are damaged, I’m not going for the rustic or farmhouse style look. I don’t want to colour/stain them (plus I don't think we have the skill) nor do I want to emphasize the grain or other contrast.

About the space:

Just my husband and I and our cat (who occasionally pukes, recently onto the raw wood 😐) live here, no children but we’d like to get a dog. We live in the upstairs flat, so there is no risk of outdoor shoes/weather. However, we’d like to have the same floor throughout the whole space, including bathroom and kitchen, knowing that we will be mindful of water spillage, etc.

Here are the options I’ve considered:

1. Sasdura - a high quality, water-based polyurethane from a local wood product specialist. They said that their poly doesn’t need a sealer. However, I found it really changed the colour (it was amber coloured in the container) and I did not like what it did to the boards we tested it on. It emphasized every blemish in the wood and I found it made the wood look wetter (or gave them more depth?) than I expected. Could that be because the boards are so old they soaked it up more? The boards in the picture below have 4 coats but were not sanded as nicely as the rest, because they are in a closet and we needed to get it done quickly and didn’t care as much how they looked, however I didn’t expect them to change that drastically. This product will cost over $700 to cover 600 sq feet with 3-4 coats.
2. Woca Master Oil – the same company as mentioned above supplies this, but I am wary of the maintenance because of how much time/effort we’ve already put into these floors, we don’t think we’ll be keen to do the required maintenance coat every 1-3 years (it’s also been hard to get an answer on how regularly it is required). I’ve read it is hard to get a satisfying result without a perfect sanding job and having to rent the buffer to recoat are deterrents.
3. Loba, Rubio, etc – I’ve read about online a bit, but not too much because none are carried here and I would probably just for with Woca because of its availability, if we chose a penetrating finish
4. Bona Naturale or Classic Seal & Mega 1 (I don't think we need traffic for our purposes...?) – the problem is that this is not carried here, and I’d have to order it and have it shipped from a distributor in Quebec, so test/samples are not really an option. I read that the Naturale has some white in it, would that give a white washed effect? I don’t want that. Does the Classic have any colour in it or is it purely clear and without tone/colour?

I’m leaning towards one of these combos of Bona sealer and finish, based on what I’ve read online, but is there another approach or product others would recommend? Ideally one that doesn’t require much experience or rental equipment.

Close up of difference between raw board and closet floor with Sasdura, a water-based polyurethane. Most of the black dots and marks were barely visible before the finish went on.

Sasdura vs. raw floor, the difference in colour is quite significant (the grey mark is my phone's shadow). I know there will be some change, but I wasn't expecting this much ambering. This was the beginning of my self-doubt!

Detail of the kind of remaining damage and gouges. Large holes will be filled with top-nails (not in this exact layout though) but other blemishes will remain. They don't look bad in the photo, but I am concerned about how finishes will highlight and darken everything.

Other questions:

Would filling the gouges/ empty nail holes, etc help with the overall damage? If so, what should I use, epoxy? I’m not trying to hide them though because there’s too many.

Does sealer just seal the wood or would it be helpful to deal with small gouges, etc?

Is oxalic acid (Bar Keeper’s Friend is all I’ve been able to get) the best approach to removing/reducing the oxide stains?

Is there a recommended cleaning product for getting ground-in dirt out?

Are we crazy for trying to do the finish ourselves? In the beginning we didn’t have much choice because of the paint. In the summer/fall we wanted to give up so we had a guy come to quote us on what it would cost to do the final sand and to apply finish, but he said he’d basically charge us a lot of money and that we could/should just finish ourselves since the floors weren’t hardwood and couldn’t get a professionally finished look out of them with their existing damage. So we’ve just kept at it on our own.

Sorry for the essay, but I have spent so much time researching and learning but still feel so uninformed and don’t know what to go ahead with. Having invested so many hours into the floors themselves is adding to my concern about picking the wrong product. I’ve tried calling a couple Bona suppliers (in other provinces), but it’s hard to get good advice without photos. Any assistance or guidance is very welcome and I appreciate this space to share our (hair-pulling) ~journey~ with these floors!