Solid Hardwood, Engineered and Laminate Flooring - antique pine floors (200 yrs)

We have recently taken down a log house & also an 150 yr. old post & beam house. When we rebuild....HOW do we clean the very dirty pine floors? How do we finish them to keep their antique character? We like old and worn, versus shiny new.

We moved into our 100 year old house 14 years ago. It has heartpine flooring and the upstairs floors were filthy. They hadn't been touched in years! I used a floor scrubber/waxer and a little white vinegar in water. After each scrubbing, I used a wet/dry vac to get the water up as quickly as possible. It took many times before I stopped making mud puddles and had just clear water. Once the floors were clean and dried, I applied paste wax by hand using 0000 steel wood and buffed with the bristle brushes of the scrubber. The felt and lambs wool pads normally used for buffing tended to snag on the floor. If you like the old look, a paste wax finish is probably your best bet. A little stain can be mixed in with the paste wax if you need to add some color to the floor. Trewax used to make a wax in Indian Sand color that was about perfect but I haven't been able to find that in years and have been using Johnson's floor paste wax and just adding a little stain. This needs to be reapplied once or twice a year depending on traffic. Refinishing with poly will make your floors more low maintenance but you will lose some of that antique, worn look.