From the point of view of how we manage our time, which is unrelentingly finite, I don't find oil a practical seal for the traffic and spills of the kitchen area, unless you enjoy constantly tending something, cleaning and re-oiling regularly. Timber floor finishes have changed a lot in recent years. Polyurethane gives timber a distinctly tan/orange colour. Water based seals are a bit more expensive but far more durable in low sheen than polyurethane, and doesn't add that orange tint. If you wet a piece of your timber you will see a similar effect to water-based seal - it intensifies the marks, grains, tones and colour differences somewhat - just like wetting a dry rock or shell intensifies the marks and colours briefly. You can experiment on a piece of your flooring first before making a decision. Good luck with the results - I too think your flooring has great potential.

I have two dogs and they both live and play inside. At one stage we had three. Our floors look no more worn than the day I oiled then 6 years ago. We will be selling in around a year and at that time I may rotary with a white pad (never need to sand again)but really there is no need. After 30 years of fixing timber issues, it breaks my heart to see such a beautiful substance treated with a toxic plastic bag. This is our puppy the other day with a sore foot.

Well it's is simple, as we will now have concrete floor that get huge amount of winter sunlight in that main living room area our thermal mass figure went up. with the use of phase change material in the roof it to give a thermal mass effect but lot less weight. What it does is stores the energy/heat and transfers it back into room a night. You must realise that this is a very exposed site and we had to get min 6 star rating. Our insulation goes like this from roof down 1, R7 Rock wool batts 2. 90mm Phase change Material 3. to support pcm you have to use 12mm ply sheeting in place of plasterboard 4. Float concrete 5. Electric in slab heating 6. Precast tilt, but played down slabs Underslab 7. R7 Rock wool again 8. 75mm foam batts 9. Reflective foil 10. Box in around steel and make air tight as possible Also all the glass is double glazed, argon filled and thermal shield. We had all that minus pcm and failed because standard way of accessing doesn't have it in calulations. i had to go and show council a sample of the stuff an how it works. This is not cheap but we can just about say that room will sit at a constant 21 to 24 degrees all year around without need for air conditioning . Phase change article

We went with Monument and I am delighted. I was worried about it making the house hotter, but not at all as we added some extra insulation while the roof was lifted. We look over our roof to Mt Dandenong and it really feels like we are floating above the rooftops now (previously had a lighter color). I have also noticed there is far less glare being darker. Pic below is not my best shots ... but you get the idea. Forgot to add we also have a flat cliplock roof and used a combination of Monument and Dune on the house.