How should we sand and treat our Victorian floorboards?
It might be better if you didn't stain the wood.

We have varnished the floors in nearly all the rooms in our circa 1900 house and in each case we used clear Ronseal Diamond Hard varnish - it's quick drying and "does what it says on the tin" * - and with three coats it still darkens the wood quite nicely.

It isn't necessary to stain before varnishing and most varnishes don't need diluting.

In a couple of rooms we stained the boards, but only because we had to replace some and the new ones were the wrong colour. In those rooms is was a case of two coats of stain on the new boards and one on the old. Any more and the wood becomes too dark.

The best thing to do is to stain a piece of board in areas with one, two and three coats plus leave an area plain, then varnish. This will give you an idea of what the final effect will be and you can compare the different levels of stain against each other.