The Best Of: A Different Take On Floors

    One of the greatest things a trip to Sweden offers is quaint little reminders. The pace and social attitude of Sweden is a refreshing take on how life IS and not how it marketed to be. Being that this statement relies on experience from having visited of living in Sweden let me offer an example.
   While driving on Swedish highways it frequently happened that a motorist would be merging, but only doing so extremely s l o w l y. Large trucks, and occasionally cars, would have to brake heavily in order to avoid a collision or an incident. As this happened there were no flashing of lights, honking horns, dramatic swerving and violent acceleration finalized by the giving of "the look" (at least) or "the bird" followed by yelling and cursing (at most).
   So why the anecdote? Besides the fact that I was stunned by the civility and seemingly passe' attitude toward driving there were other standards that were not questioned, if only for the sake that logically, intelligently, and simply-they couldn't be. And this is where pine floors come in.....
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    Sweden seems immune to the marketing B.S. (for lack of a better, more appropriate term) that the USA is so well known for. There little to no composite flooring and not much carpeting to be found in Sweden. But what they do have is beautiful, solid, Pine floors!
     Now, anyone in America that I have told about Pine floors usually italicizes it when they say it, "Pine?? Why Pine??" Then come the advertised reasons to get carpet or a laminate- which is cheap, scratch resistant, easy to install, warrantied, already shiny, durable, and so on. Well might I add that so is Pine (except for the already shiny part).
    In one house that I saw, the floors were 150 years old and 2.5"(60 mm) thick! Children play on them everyday and bare feet and socks are the only accepted pedestrian attire allowed in the house, which is fine since no one is going to get splinters anyway. 
    A pine floor is very easy to install and finishing can be any of a variety of ways from being left raw or using Swedish Floor Soap, then there is of course Varathane floor finish or for a "green" option one could use Polyx, and there are traditional options like linseed oil, tung oil, or even beeswax and linseed oil. 
   Details aside this is just one example of how by using a logic and common sense you can have beautiful floors in your house without spending a mint.