it CAN be sanded and refinished but its NOT cheap and a big disruption in your household.

Call a reputable sand and finish guy NOT a flooring retailer.

find one here http://woodfloors.org/certified-professional-search.aspx

(I'm a former S&F contractor)

And unfortunately, there is no S&F guy within a hundred miles either. People around here just glue down wall to wall carpeting.

Since I can't abide carpeting, though, do you think a second layer of Pergo or something on top of the original sad wood floors would make the rooms warmer in winter? I dress like an Inuit during winter, but of course the feet are always hardest to keep warm.

Heat gun, scrapers, turpentine, lacquer thinner, paint stripper.. all are tools to try, see if they give decent results.

For the chemical solutions, you'll want to get a good respirator, though. Not just a dust mask.

Thanks - I'm starting to feel better about this.

Honestly, I'd rather see a floor with character and age than some laminate-perfect cover-up.

Maybe I could do the acid wash and then dark stain; perhaps whatever imperfections remained would indeed qualify as 'character'. Believe me, I don't even try to make most things in an old house look brand new. If I use the same stain on the living room AND kitchen floors, that would help them blend together. I don't like high gloss either. Too new looking. I want things to be as nice as possible but still as if they've been gently used a long time.

I think you've solved my wood floor problem, thanks.

Luckily these rooms are an average of 15x15', and the living room/office alcove is even larger. I do love old area rugs on the floor, though. I bought a wool one brand new because I like the pattern, but I plan to throw it over the top of an old swing set frame, water it down, and leave it in the worst summer sun a few days. But I have a number of really old ones. When I used to browse Persian rugs in L.A., it affected me the same as some people browsing jewelry.

BTW, when I was shopping materials to redo the main upstairs bedroom, I couldn't find wallpaper I liked and it was way too expensive anyway. So I watched the online fabric sales and finally located a perfect rose stripe pattern in heavy cotton. Ecru background, red and blue little roses with tiny green leaves, and the stripe borders are pale yellow. I'll put it up with liquid starch, which is a surprisingly authentic method for Vics.

Actual execution of the plan has to await replacement of the ceiling plaster and refinishing of the floor. I don't want to beg trouble.

then sanded again to expose a lighter top color. Honey colored poly on top of that. Simply stunning.

In the first house I bought in L.A. in the 1970's, I had to strip layers of paint off wood floors before refinishing them. For a top coat I used matte finish marine varnish. Tough as nails.

I ripped up nasty wall to wall carpet that contained not only cigarette stink and spilled alcohol but the droppings of 3 dogs, 4 cats and a parrot when I moved in after I'd painted the interior and dripped on said carpet. The floors underneath had black pet stains but I didn't have time to go the acid route, so I just had them sanded and sealed as is. Over 18 years most of those stains have faded from black to light brown and the only reason I know they're there is because I took up all the strategically placed handwoven rugs (by me) when my own cat started to have accidents.

I've walked on these floors with rubber soled shoes for 18 years and they still don't need refinishing.

First, bug bombing the place will remove most of the stench and last at least a year. Second, coffee beans and newspaper will soak up any odor left. Of course now we have Febreeze.

and that reeking carpet had to go. As did the 200+ nail holes in the wall (200 is where I stopped counting).

Once it was repainted and the floors finished, all stank had vanished, never to return.

Now it smells of renal disease cat, mothballs, and unwashed fleece.

and the remaining half threatens to bit by bit. But I'm really blessed that the living room ceiling got done early on. Someone had lowered it, of course, and put those hideous white acoustic tiles up. What they never did was to remove or secure the giant ceiling medallion where the original chandelier had hung. When my Amish contractor tore down that unspeakable lowered ceiling, we saw that the medallion above was almost ready to drop. It would've crashed through that cheapjack lowered ceiling like a boulder and killed anybody it managed to fall on. Which probably would've been me.

The furnace, which appeared to be the very first model Lennox ever made, had never been replaced. Not only had people been running up nearly $600 a month natural gas bills in a vain effort to warm the house, but Lennox told me after hearing the symptoms that it was probably about to blow up. They already knew I wouldn't be buying a central furnace of any kind, so I don't think that was just an effort at hard sell.

that does a great job on the living room where the computer is but fails to heat the rooms where I work and sleep and that's actually a good thing.

I do keep a CO detector across the room from it just in case the heating chamber pops a seam.

I hope you were able to save that medallion somehow. People would be impressed by it come selling time.

The only way I'm leaving this house is in a hearse.

But this house was built a hundred years ago in a tiny backwater town near the Lewis-Clark trail. It's built around an 1847 slave cabin. The previous owners of the house are nice enough people themselves, but they rented to a succession of poor choices, the last being meth cookers. So for many, many years nobody cared.

Seven layers of linoleum on the kitchen floor held down with some kind of mastic and nails. Just as well there was really no kitchen so we could tackle the problem head on. We got out putty knives and started to pull, scrape and fill barrels with this junk. There were tiny nails everywhere. The final part and the most difficult was getting the black, hard as a rock stuff off the wood itself.

Kept scraping, then used a sander to finish off the wood. Very few stains in the pine but still a million tiny holes. Just used a wood bleach on the few stains and they lightened up enough so we could finish off the job. All these years later, the floor still looks good. I took the suggestion of DUer and used Minwax Floor Refinisher as a refresher a few years ago and it has held up well.

As to a new floor, are you sure you have clearance under the doors to accommodate another layer of wood?

I'd get a hefty hand held sander with lots of sandpaper of various grades and go at it. A good vibrating sander and supplies would cost far less than a new floor or a professional to do the job. You have to be patient and have a good back. Down to the bare wood, stain and poly.

Although the kitchen floor was the hardest to do for us, the other rooms were more frustrating. It seems one or many of the prior owners just painted the floors around the room size rugs. BLACK! That was another process. I think I hated that with a passion. Try to get a refinished area to match up with the aged floor underneath. Worth it in the end.

This old Yankee never gives up.

BYW: Have you checked places like Craigslist or your local paper to see if there is someone within a reasonable distance who could do the initial --or all-- the work? I bet there is someone who has the skill and needs the work.

You'll be my inspiration for perseverance.

This little bump in the road town is the county seat but still so tiny it's not even on a lot of maps. I'll keep occasionally calling the radio station general store show, asking for at least equipment. Maybe by the time I can afford a general contractor to do some more work, the 2 in town will be over their political snit enough to take my business. They get really mad about liberals around here and they hate my yard signs during campaign seasons. One tree service turned down a $2K job from me on that basis and made it clear so I couldn't miss the point. The nearest town of any real size is over 60 miles away, and I'm cautious of total strangers. Unfortunately, I'm also getting old enough to find the prospect of complete diy daunting. Kinda between a rock and a hard place. One thing for sure, no more carpeting!

Regardless, it will get done one way or another. All this information and support has been wonderful; it won't be wasted.