Sanding, depending on how vigorous, will either scuff the sealing top-coats or remove them to bare wood. If the floor guy only sanded, there is a reason it looked dingy. Seems to me the flooring guy was responsible for properly fixing his damage; it sounds as if he did not. Can you post a picture so we can see what you have to work with? You will definitely have to re-stain and apply coats to seal/top-coat (varnish, poly, etc.). The question is whether you can just stain and then apply sealing coats to repair what you have sanded. Do you have any idea what was used to seal/ttop-coat after the flooring guy stained? Different product will age differently and have different sheens. If you cannot figure out the original products used (including the original manufactror and formula for the stain), I would sand every tread or at least the part that will be exposed (once away from the spindles, you should be able to use an electric finish sander), stain again, and put on uniform sealing top-coats of something like water-based flooring poly to all the treads. Researching the best products to refinish stairs will provide name brands for the final, protective finish coats. I do not think that something like Rejuvinate will work since you have probably taken off the stain and protective top-coats.

I just ran across this thread while looking on the internet for flooring to patch an old wood floor. Very interesting thread. Could someone tell me a good place on Garden Web to find a thread about removing sticks of the old floor and replacing. I found information on utube but not about how to figure how much flooring to purchase. Mine will need repair much like mrplows. I have one very bad area which will need thirty two 2 1/4 wide sticks. Each stick would only need to be 8 inches long which is because a wall was torn out and there was no hardwood under that wall. I will need to figure out how much wood to get to make the lengths varied. My other area needs fourteen of the 2 1/4 and each is 60 inches. I have a feeling I am going to need to purchase a lot of hardwood for the repairs. Thanks for any information.

You should have your banisters stained at the same time. On the sheen we did satin. I can't remember the brand name because the wood floor person brought it, but I think it started with a "D."

You might want to read this valuable advice from SJ McCarthy written earlier today. https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5806177/difference-between-white-oak-and-red-oak-flooring SJ McCarthy The ORANGE you are seeing is the finish. The oil based polyurethanes are products that turn WHITE PAPER orange. It is called ambering. The red oak floors in the photo have been finished with an oil based finish. This is common practice but not currently attractive in today's 'white is best' flooring fashion. The issue I have with redoing the floors is this: The floors will loose 20 years of life if you sand/refinish them today. How do I know this? Because a site finished floor is supposed to offer 25 years of 'life'. A solid 3/4" hardwood (which I'm guessing this is) will offer 60 - 80 years of service (that's 3 sand/refinishes during it's lifetime). Each time you 'change' the colour (on a whim or due to current fashion) you cut down the life of your 'lifetime' floor. If you do this 3 times in 20 years (today, 10 years from now and then 20 years from now) you will have cut the life of your floor down to 40 years. That's half of it's natural life span. Balance deleted