Fern,

I have Osmo in my kitchen (no pics because I'm getting the ctop installed next week) but have used osmo in the other rooms of my house as well. The "first" completed bedroom served as base camp while we worked on other rooms so it was subjected to every kind of abuse possible. Several years of heavy work boots, dust, drywall, and the residue you get from demoing the house. I will never use anything else.

It's great! Amazing! I love it! It's also expensive just for what it's worth but I consider it worth every penny.

Thank you for the recommendation! I just saw a sample of it and it was beautiful. But of course that does tell you how it will perform.

If the expense is bothering you, try looking at this:

Here is a link that might be useful: costs of surface treatment vs. OSMO

I wonder if they'd send a small sample so you could coat a board and test it?

I used Tried and True wood finish (boiled linseed oil and beeswax, OSMO is carnuba wax) on my stairs, it is not water-resistant at all (though might be better if I went over it with a hard carnuba car wax). Footprints from bare feet (esp. wet out of the shower) and handprints from DD climbing the stairs show. It *is* very easy to touch up since it is oil-based. I'm skeptical of any product that says you can have both. Thinking of going over (old) T&T finish with Waterlox.

Have you posted on Woodworking?

I have Land Ark oil on all of my pine floors. We have been in just over a year and I only did one repair. (Clock fell from above the cabs and the glass scratched one spot) All I did was dip a edge of cloth in the oil, rub it on the spot and buff out with a clean cloth. Pine being soft I knew I would get scratches and dings so I thought I would need to touch up. Turns out that because it is so well penetrated that what I get is dents, not scratches so the finish is still there.

How is it as far as water-resistance and wear (from traffic)?

As far as I'm concerned the cost comparison for Osmo is a joke at best and a deliberate lie at worst. It is SO much more money to do the Osmo than the other alternatives out there. The stated coverage for Osmo is 200-260 per liter.

I buy my Osmo from the very link you cited in 2.5 liter containers. My kitchen is 12x15 for a total of 180 square feet. For two coats it would be a total of 360 feet or roughly 1.5 liters at the most. It took an ENTIRE container to do that section, almost twice the stated amounts. We were literally scraping the bottom of the can on the last boards.

Then you look at the "year 7" section of the link. Ignoring the product cost issue you note that they assume you will move NO furniture, clean nothing and mask nothing. How would you spot repair while moving no furniture, sanding nothing, cleaning nothing? ??? It's a truly fictional amount.

Like I said, I love the stuff but it's way more expensive than anything else I looked at.

I used waterlox and really love the look and feel of it.

We used Rubio Monocoat, a zero VOC finish. It is a blend of oils and is a one coat process. We used less than half a quart of finish on our kitchen floor. Our floor has been done for about three months, and it has held up very well even though we didn't do anything to protect it while the cabinets got installed, etc. We have a large family, and the kids are not particularly careful about dragging stools around and stuff like that. The floor is holding up well to all the traffic it gets. There is one scratch that I have noticed, but haven't tried touching up yet, from installing the fridge cabinet.
We did handscraped walnut, with the hope that as it gets distressed (abused) it will look even better, though. I love the matte finish-it feels really silky.

I will look up Rubio right now! Floor guys are telling me that OSMO is too slippery for kitchens, it has high VOCs (at time of application), and generally seemed to have talked me out of it...

timber.j -- the Rubio Monocoat looks like a great product! Did you apply it yourself?

A friend of ours does wood floors so we paid him to help finish the floor. My dh handscraped it, and our oldest helped him install it. It was a very easy process, though. We will more than likely do the rest of the wood floors ourselves, when we get the living and dining room done. We would need to rent a buffer, though.

Butchers wax is dirt cheap and durable. With a buffer, it goes quickly. You can lay coats down over oil. Get a scratch or a patch of wear, you can dab on a little stain, build up a couple of coats of wax and you're back in business.

At my mom's house, we walk on the floors with wet, salty boots, the fire pops out sparks onto the floors -- they haven't been refinished in the 50 years she's lived in the house and they look great with a yearly waxing (around the edges on the rugs) with a can of wax that costs less than $10 and lasts years -- and does the furniture as well.

Polyurethane is not a repairable surface. I'd avoid anything with poly and stick to a truly repairable (as opposed to a "repeatable") finish.

(I have Water lox (long story -- a mistake) and hate it more every day. After 3 months, it's peeling at every nick and scratch, like poly. Looks and feels like plastic to me, not wood. My opinion. Many people love it though. Maybe it's better for new wood.)

I'm planning to wax over mine ...

So, just for curiosities sake, I could use a couple coats of 100% pure Tung Oil (not minwax or waterlox) and then use a coat of Butcher's Wax over it and it would be durable? Would this work on kitchen cabinets as well?
S

we used tung oil on our floors. they've been in for about a year. we went with a very hard wood (quarter and rift sawn white oak). So far they still look like new. We have a couple of small kids who zoom around the house on these little wheely toys... no dogs though so I would say moderate wear to the floors and as stated they are looking good. I was on the flooring forum a lot when making this decision and there are a lot of really well informed people on there.

The durability comes after a few coats of wax, silverraven. And I wouldn't apply all these coats of oil and wax within a short period of time -- the wood won't absorb the oil and won't take the wax as well.

Give it a little time. Let the oil fully absorb.

Then do your waxing. (It would work on cabinets. I think I heard Martha Steward even waxed her painted walls!)

Normally, you'd apply wax just once a year. But if you want to build it up, you could apply 3-4-5 coats (as much as you have the strength or attention for!) over a few weeks or months, after the oil sinks in. Also, be careful you don't get carried away and push the panel in while you're buffing!

Then, it's "durable". Water will bead off, it can take some abrasion, many things will take off a layer or 2 of wax but not get to the stain layer.

You never need to take wax off, you can just keep adding it on. If after many years you find it's a bit yellowed you could use a surface refreshening product, but that's years away if you just do the yearly waxing.

It's not bulletproof, but it's repairable. If you get a scratch or an area you want to fix, you can remove the wax with sandpaper and/or mineral spirit, restain, reoil, rewax and it should blend in with the rest. You could never do that with most other "one-time" finishes. You'd have to sand down the whole floor, or at least the area, and hope you can get it to match.

(For what it's worth, I have waxed over polyurethane with good results. It was breaking up, in an apartment, and wasn't going to get refinished, and I wasn't going to make it worse. I'll pretty much wax over anything! But I don't have science to back this up, so I can't advise widespread use of this technique.)

Take the advice of some others here and try a board first. See if it gives you what you're looking for. As I said, it's not bulletproof, but I always felt like damage was no big deal when I could fix it or blend it in. But NOW it's a big deal, since I can't.

Good luck!