White oak is better than red but any wood is a poor choice for bath floors. If you were able to apply enough finish to waterproof the floor (which is douptful) ,it would look more like plastic than natural wood. There are so many cracks that water will find it's way to wood and turn it black. There are water resistant products that look like wood better suited for bath floors.
Tile offers duribility and high end look both which makes it best of all.

White oak, ash,or maple is preferable to red oak. Waterlox would be a good finish for a bathroom, and an oil-based poly would do as well.
Casey

By waterlox you mean a tung oil finish?

I'm aware that any hardwood isn't as good as tile or other options, but we are using it in a master and have no intention of letting water sit on the floor. Just looking for the best way to do the finish. Thanks!

Waterlox, despite the manufacturer's verbal sleight of hand, is not a "tung oil finish." It is a varnish that just happens to be made from tung oil. Once cooked with phenolic resin it's no longer "tung oil," it's varnish. Varnish. Varnish that just happens to be made _from_ tung oil.

I'd second Waterlox's use in this application, though.

If you look long and hard at Waterlox's web site, you'll read:

"While Waterlox Original Tung oil finishes contain a superior drying oil, namely Tung Oil, they are fully cooked varnishes, which dry quicker and form permanent films tough enough to walk on and take daily abuse."

"By definition, a varnish, with a few exceptions, contains resins as essential constituents. Further, varnishes dry by the evaporation of its volatile constituents, by the oxidation or chemical reaction of other constituents or partly by both. We view our Waterlox Original Tung oil finishes as varnishes, and while many make untrue product claims, Waterlox has never made any claims that we manufacture anything but a varnish."

I'd hesitate to put wood on a bathroom floor. But if the area was small and I thought I was emotionally prepared for the possibility of a failed experiment, I might be tempted to give it a try. I'd replace any old plumbing and install one of those soft plastic toilet rings first. I would want to be sure I could contain spray from sinks, tub and shower.

That said, Waterlox is very good and much easier to repair than most varnishes. Unlike polyurethane and most other varnishes, each coat fuses into the last. In contrast, once they've dried thoroughly, most varnishes must be sanded before recoating, to provide a rough surface for the next coat to make a mechanical attachment to. Plus, you really should recoat an entire surface after repairing most varnishes because the edges of overcoated areas tend to be visible. That successive coats of Waterlox merge makes this much less of a problem.

Waterlox is pretty aromatic, and the smell lingers a while. I have a terrible sense of smell and I can still detect Waterlox inside a medicine cabinet I finished last spring. I like it, however, because it smells like old speedboats, but some people don't. You might consider not using Waterlox indoors if you or someone you live with has a good nose and really dislikes the smell.

Red oak, which has open pores, is not very water resistant. White oak, which has closed pores and is water resistant, has been used for boatbuilding. Live oak, which is neither red nor white, has been used for battleships.

But water makes nasty black stains on oak that are tedious to remove by sanding and applications of increasingly strong solutions of oxalic acid. For wet applications where appearance is important, Honduras mahogany, teak, and bald cypress come to mind, although I don't know whether these have all the qualities you'd want in a good bathroom floor. A competent flooring person should be able to advise.

I did red oak in one bath:

Two coats of Waterlox on the BOTTOM of the boards and the sides. Then the top got several more coats after it was laid.

Has anyone applied waterlox themselves? My floor guy really prefers water based poly, so it almost makes me want to apply the waterlox myself. It would have to be easy though, because I'd have to make my husband do it, since I'm pregnant and don't want to breathe the fumes. He's not the most skilled artisan. Thoughts?

In your case--mainly the room being a bath and not subject to heavy shoe traffic---a water based floor poly(Notice I specified FLOOR poly)---should be sufficient.

Two reasons. One, chemists have improved the durability of water based finishes, and the offgassing while curing is minimal.

Here is a link that might be useful: Floor finish

I applied the Waterlox ... it reeks like tung oil, but after it's dried and cured it's not evident.

I tried a water based clear coat for the first time recently. I was impressed. It looked good, didn't stink, dried quickly, and my brush cleaned up easily. I did add some retarder to make it flatten out a little better.