Thank you for your responses, I do appreciate your suggestions. My tile is glazed so I don't think it would qualify as quarry tile, would it? Truthfully I've been tempted to paint over it. I accidentally dripped a little paint on it when I was painting the walls and I never did get it all off. I was thinking about maybe doing a quilt block design on it at one time, and I also thought about just doing a marbelized or a rag faux finish on it. Only problem was I couldn't decide what colors to use so that if any of the paint wore off, it wouldn't look too bad for some of the original finish to show through. It'd be nice to tone it down some so it wasn't so.... red.... It's hard to decorate the rest of the room without it looking like Pizza Hut or a Coca-Cola ad. I kind of thought Reeree might be right in that there might be an oily residue being left on the floor, which attracts dust and pet fur and makes the footprints show up so badly. To make matters worse, we have a dog that thinks he belongs in the house. I'm not a dog person, we got the dog for the grandkids who lived with us, and they took very little interest in him though they wanted him very badly at first. Now the grandkids are grown and the dog has bonded with DH. He (the dog LOL) tracks stuff in, and waits to scratch and shake himself till he gets inside. The fur in the house drives me crazy. I just can't keep up with it! I would love to have one of those steam cleaners. I looked at both styles on Amazon.com and read all the reviews people had submitted on them. I do have a carpet cleaner that sprays out water and then sucks it back up. It's kind of big and cumbersome, but I tried it on the tile. I haven't used it since we removed all the carpet, so I had to reacquaint myself, but I just wanted to see if it would do 'in a pinch'. It did vacuum up most of the water but still left the floor more wet than dry. No puddles, though, and the water that I threw out was dirty. It has only a brush that spirals around a roller in the front and I'm not sure that exerted very much pressure, because of the machine being made for carpet. Still it was a lot easier to use than I thought it would be. I tried vinegar and hot water this time, but I soon noticed that the floor was drying out kind of cloudy. So I got down on my hands and knees with a towel to dry it off and then I saw that it didn't really get the floor as clean as it looked from 'standing up distance'. I'm 62 and there's a lot I can't really do anymore due to a bad back. I read all those comments in another thread about the old people whose houses are so filthy and they don't know it. I just don't want to be one of them but my main activity is my garden and my quilting. I'm kind of wondering about the pads that the Shark has. How long do they last before you have to replace them? Does the Hoover floormate use pads or does it have brushes? Can you who have them tell me if there's anything you don't like about your machines and whether there's a specific model I should get? You mention steam, but I don't see in the stuff I can find on the Internet whether the machine heats the water or if you have to start with hot water, as I did with the carpet cleaner. This isn't exactly steam, if so. What is the hottest the water should be?

Worthy, primitive fireplace? Are you referring to the style or that it looks like it was built by cavemen? Bebetokids, it only took us a couple of hours to beat up the floor. We didn't actually install the floor ourselves. Charliedawg, the doors are 8ft tall. Yeah, the subs helped with distressing the floor as well. Funny how they were denting my floors out of carelessness and then looked so disturbed when we were doing it on purpose! Totallyblessed, yes the baseboards are the same as the trim around the doors. Krislrob, you're right. Kats moved to the RV park and wasn't going to have internet access. I think she said she'd let us know when she was moved in. Hope all is well with her. Again, thanks to everyone for the kind words. The house is finally looking like the home I planned and I can see the end to this very long journey.

You can stain with an oil based stain and then apply a waterborne polyurethane. This will give you the look you're after with much less VOC (volatile organic content) load, although most floor stains have a high VOC content by themselves. I have stained heart pine with Bona DriFast stain and then topcoated with Bona Traffic Satin and have gotten very attractive results. You can consider the Waterlox system, although if odor is your prime concern, then research thre pros and cons of using that. Hard wax oil, of which I have no experience using, may be another option for you.

Hello! I realize this thread is 11 years old, but your floors turned out beautifully, and I am curious how they've held up. Did the Waterlox yellow? Do you love it still? I'm looking at a remodel, and have never loved poly floors, and the fact you can repair small sections with the Waterlox is really appealing. I will continue to do more research, but I thought I'd reach out and see if you still were happy. Thanks!