Friday’s Wall Street Journal home section included a story of a beautiful modern home in Northern Virginia. It says that all the wood was “oak finished with white oil for the floors and cabinetry.”
I’ve never heard of white oil and wonder if any FWW folks have used it. I’ve always wanted to find a way to finish oak without the inherent yellow in the wood, even when covered with water based poly.
Attached is a screen shot of the kitchen cabinetry – photo fidelity is not quite what would be seen on the WSJ website, but I think one can get a sense of the delicate light tones in the wood.
Noodling around the web, I found products like Osmo White Wood Wax or Oil White from Skagerak. Are products like these what one would use to obtain the delicate light tones seen in the photo?
Replies
I think your looking for Osmo Raw.
https://osmocolorusa.com/product/polyx-oil-raw/
I think many companies have a slight white tinted oil to keep a natural un-yellowed look. Personally I use Osmo and they have both "natural" and "raw" which are both white tinted to different degree to avoid the yellow look. You might get some white in the pores but it will actually look quite unfinished as it says.
I wonder if the article was referring to "pickled oak"? Open grained woods like oak were often finished with a technique that include whitewash which helped eliminate bug infestations - this was known as pickling. The result was a finish that was much lighter than a typical oil finish.
But I googled "white oil wood finish" and found a product that is used primarily in Europe called "white oil". It sounds a bit like boiled linseed oil, but may not darken the wood like BLO. Check here: https://centuryhouseinc.com/product/skovby-care-collection-white-oil/
Thanks for the input. I've seen pickled oak and it's different - looks a bit more like white dye than this treatment. But I think you have it right with the Skovby product. I'm going to give it a try. From the photos, the oak cabinets appear like ash covered in water based poly. Quite bright. I like it.
Bona has a few nice products that stay light. A lot of the challenge is gonna be wood selection. There can be a whole lot of variation between oak boards. Or even within one board. I like to get oak from a yard that slip planes everything vs in the rough.
+1 for osmo raw. Rubio also has some options. I’m sure there are others, but I like those as they’re pretty fool proof from an application standpoint
If you watch some of the Burbon Moth YouTube videos. He likes oak for a lot of his pieces. Many (most?) he uses Rubio monocoat. A number of them where white/pickeled and some were what he called mud. I would guess that might be what the description you had was refered to.