Jenny, First you need to decide on type of finish you want to use, i.e. oilbase or commercial waterborne. There are others, such as acid cure and moisture cure, but the first two I mentioned are the most widely used today in the film forming category. For a finish that does not form a thick film, but does require a little more maintenance...choose tung oil, such as Waterlox. For low VOC products (volatile organic compounds), choose commercial waterborne. Second, there is a wealth of information to be had on the internet about wood floor finishing, product types and appearance differences. This site has a search function that can return lots of good information. Manufacturer's sites can also be informative. Third, finish types will have durability and appearance differences. Make sure you choose a product that will give you the durability and appearance you want. The claim is that the commercial waterborne finishes, such as those by BonaKemi and Basic Coatings (there are others), are the most durable wood finishing products in use in homes today. I am including the URL for BonaKemi for your interest. Best of luck with your floors. Here is a link that might be useful: BonaKemi

A $1000 upgrade to 3 coats of Bona Traffic is probably an AWESOME deal. You didn't tell us the square footage, but knowing how EXPENSIVE the Traffic is, I would not hesitate. DuraSeal is known as a "good" DIY level finish. The Bona Traffic has been the "benchmark" water based product for over a decade. Everyone compares their finish to "Traffic" in their advertising/educational materials. As for StreetShoe, it is an amazing product as well. Again, one of the "big boys" when it comes to water based finishes. If you did not have all the remodeling 'patches' I would recommend a buff and coat with the StreetShoe to get you another 10 years before needing a full sand and refinish. Is there any reason why you do not want to continue with StreetShoe? A 16 year old finish is supposed to look a bit "dinged up" (minus the patches of course). It is completely normal to have a "buff and coat" done around about this time in a finish's life. The StreetShoe is "right on track" in it's life span.

We refinished one half of our house (moved everything from one side to the other), waited a couple of months and then did the other side. It is always a pain to deal with floors. We had to have our grand piano professional moved, stored and then returned to us. That was $1000! My advice is to take this opportunity to do a deep purge. Start doing that now in preparation for whatever you decide to do about the floors. Start with your garage. Get it as emptied-out as you possibly can so that there is room in there to hold as much of your furniture as possible. If you have an upstairs and you are not touching the floors up there, purge all those rooms. Purging those will allow you to temporarily store a bunch of things up there. Then start purging all the downstairs rooms. Fill your cars with stuff to take to Good Will, Habitate ReStore, or you favorite local re-sale or charity shop. Also take as many car loads of stuff to the local dump or recycling center as possible. If your kids are grown and need furniture for their new apartments or houses, see if there are any furniture pieces they want to take. Right before the wood floor people are about to start, move everything you can to the garage, upstairs (if you have one), covered patio (cover with tarp). You may even have a neighbor that will let you put some things in their garage. I took some things to my Dad's house for a couple of weeks. After all that, if you need a storage unit, go ahead and get one. They aren't that expensive for just a month. Regarding refinishing vs installing new: if your wood is the thick kind and can be sanded down and refinished, I vote for that. It'll be cheaper than replacing, and there's no reason to throw away a floor if it's not ruined. We even had broken boards and big gaps between some boards. Our wood floor person took out and replaced some of the boards, sanded everything, smeared wood filler all over it, sanded again, and stained. He was great. He even discovered that the stupid previous owners had installed red oak on one side of the house and white oak on the other side of the house! He had to work some magic to make the stains match because those woods take the stain differently. A good wood floor person can do all that for you. I can't remember how many days it took, but it seemed to go pretty quickly once they got started.

Hi; I just wanted to weigh in to tell you about a process called "screening". Screening is a process where a wood floor is very lightly sanded with a low grit and recoated with a coat of poly. The old coat of poly is not completely removed nor is the wood itself sanded down. When wood floors are screened every decade or so they can conceivably last forever and will always look nice. It's a gentler process than re-sanding. But with regular deep sanding a hardwood floor can usually only be sanded 5-7 times before it's worn out for good. With screening it's usually best to leave the wood in its natural, unstained color to avoid needing to totally sand down the poly and restain it. So upkeep might be a factor in your decision as having the floor screened every decade or so will be considerably less mess and work than having it re-sanded and is better for the longterm durability of the floor.