Looking back I can clearly see the signs. Both the flecks and the rays are shorter on it than on my white oak, but I didn’t connect the dots until reading this, so massive thanks! Will be a major help in the future, as they certainly doesn’t smell different. It doesn’t matter for this piece though, as I reinstalled the original steel hinge and I will later replace the it with one made of brass, which I will set into it too for a better look. Below I have attached a before and after, as well as my surprise and a picture of what it looks like before oil and after oil for future readers of this guide. I recorded my restoration as a video, but haven’t edited it yet.

The supplier has now said that it is European oak

Reading through this great site, as I have done many times, I’m still not sure if this sample is red or white.

The colour is more like white.. a slight olive tinge. The pores are mostly open. The rays are kind of long .. I think..

I want it to be white because its going to get wet around the sink. If its red, I might as well pay half the price for beech.

I’d be very gratefull to hear what anyone else thinks.

Thanks

Looks like cedar (as I lay here next to the wall of my cedar log home)

It could be all just white oak. I would need to see a clear view of the endgrain on multiple pieces and check for tyloses to say that more definitively.

Thank you, Eric. You just solved another mystery I had…, I don’t have any boards on the upstairs floors that show any signs of cupping. But on the first floor, I have quite a few.

So then do you think it is all one type of oak? Could it all be white?

Thanks again.

Unless the wood was specifically sorted for color and grain, it could just be down to the natural color variation of oak. It’s really hard to say for sure. One possibility is that some of the planks were replaced or repaired too, and that might account for some of the color differences.

The first three pics have quartersawn grain (or close to it), which has the effect of helping to make the boards look a little more homogenous, while the four picture is of flatsawn pieces. Flatsawn boards show a lot more vivid patterns in the grain, but are a lot harder to get to match and appear cohesive. Mostly a style preference. (Though QS pieces tend to be more stable in changes in humidity that FS pieces, but with planks this small, it probably doesn’t matter much.)

Photo 1: upstairs floor pre-sanding. Photo 2: upstairs floor post-sanding. Photo 3: upstairs original floor (!) found hidden under 4 layers of contact paper inside a laundry shoot. Photo 4: downstairs living room floor (it has much more grain than the upstairs.. was this common in the past and was there a reason?)

Thank you for putting your expertise out there and helping the rest of us do better. I appreciate the time it takes to do so!