Charcoal Floorboards

We're in the process of renovating our apartment (pics/plans here)

The wooden floor is Kauri Pine stained an orangey brown colour which is attractive but since we're removed a wall we're going to have unsightly joins in the floor as well having the existing unsightly join that goes right across the living room (to access the old heating pipes which go under the floor, we presume). There are also some patches of newer floorboards which are a slightly different colour as well as burn marks (?) and other stains which will be difficult to remove.



So in order to try to achieve a uniform colour, we've decided to stain the floor charcoal black which will go with the 1930s "Art Deco Moderne" look we're trying to achieve.

I have looked at the posts regarding black floors and I know they're hard to keep clean but we have no dogs/kids and are 8 floors up.

I can find black stains but I wondered how we achieve a charcoal finish?

Also, we want a high gloss finish for the top coat - is this best achieved using 2-pack polyurethane or water-based coating?

The blackest finish I could find when I was thinking about it was Black Japan. Looks absolutely gorgeous.

Thanks - I have a feeling that Black Japan may be "too black" for our requirements - we want a gray/black colour if possible.

It occurs to me that the only way to achieve this may be to paint the floor and then seal over the top rather that look for wood stain.

Intergrain Naturalstain is available in a charcoal tint. Its an outdoor decking type finish but you could use it inside. Its possible that the tint is available in their water based poly Floortec.