Hi,
Have the GC sand a small area that he thinks is the worst and apply some sealer. You'll be able to determine if it looks and feels acceptable to you. There are some things about a pockmarked floor that turn off some people. I don't mind holes because they can be filled or plugged, but if each nail hole is surrounded by a black water stain I tend to hate it.
Some nail holes, if near the edge, will lead to a split in the plank, and splintering. These things can be fixed, but it becomes very expensive to save a marginal floor. It took me three weeks to rehabilitate my original wood kitchen floor.
Casey

The red oak floor in my small half bath (hidden under old vinyl sheet flooring) looked very water stained in many places, and there were small gaps between the boards in some areas, but we went ahead and sanded the old finish off and I put 3 coats of polyurethane on it. I love it! I was concerned about the gaps and the stains, but now that it's done it has a great, old 'distressed' look that I've been told is now being simulated in new wood flooring. I'm really glad I didn't give up on it. I suppose if you or the GC are expecting the floor to look like a new floor you'll be disappointed, but I'd say don't give up on it too prematurely. Is the GC accustomed to working with older houses?

I'm going to sound like a broken record BUT GC generally do not have a clue about working with old houses. They are use to working with new. Their idea of fixing something is to rip it out and replace it. Working with what is there requires more time and effort on their part and generally goes against their standard ways of doing business.

Unless the guys primary business is old houses and their RESTORATION I wouldn't be putting a lot of weight on what he says.

Carol said just what I would have said.

I'll second all of the above.
Hester

Our floors looked to be in horrible condition, there was a plywood layer nailed over them, then two layers of tiles. When we took up all the layers, we weren't sure we could save them, they had terrible water stains, but we decided it was worth renting a sander for the day to see what we could do with them. They turned out fantastic, everyone raves about how they look. Sure they have a few nail holes (hardly noticeable) the water stains completely sanded out. Like others have said, don't listen to GC unless they are into "restoration" instead of just renovation.

you'd be amazed at what can be fixed. adhesives can be removed with stripper, to save on the sanding time and depth. old nail holes should be filled before sanding with stainable wood putty. you won't even know most of them are there when it's done. we just uncovered an old pine floor in our guest room yesterday. there are some black stains (water damage that is likely NOT to be removable. luckily they are in the middle where the rug will cover them. we're going for it. in another room, the same pine has already been refinished but actually i will probably remove it instead of saving. why? cracks between boards are large and there are splinters on top and at the sides of some boards. i have never found a way to overcome splinters. and i hate them. we are a no shoe household...so splinters are a big deal. good luck kren

I have the original pine floor in my almost 200-year-old house. It has many nail holes, patches, gouges, stains and imperfections -- in fact, it's mostly nail holes, patches, gouges, stains and imperfections. And I think it's perfect.

It'll "never look right" if what you're used to is Pergo. If that's the only reason he can come up with for it not being usable (not like it's unsound), and you can live with it, then it's really your decision. I have seen many high-end loft renovations in my area that take a lot of pains to keep floors that reflect the history of the original use of the space -- nail holes, machine outlines, stains and all.

You say you want to keep it. So keep it. If a board here and there is splintered and needs to be replaced, you can do that without replacing the whole floor. You can pull one out of the back of a closet floor. I have these discussions all the time with contractors: If you just reassure them you won't change your mind, they back down. If you waffle, you give them permission to steamroller you.

It probably looks a mess now, but a floor guy who works with old houses can probably do a lot, if you generally appreciate patina. (Of course, if you're a Pergo lover, you never WILL be happy.)

You can really say, "Thank you for pointing that out, I know it's not going to be perfect, but I'd really like to keep the original floor. That's my decision." and stick to it, in a friendly way. It doesn't have to be a scene. You can even joke "Am I going to fall through the floor? No? Then leave it. I like the look. We'll play cribbage."

Remember, you're staring at a large expanse of it now, focusing on all the holes. Later you'll have less to look at, all your stuff in there, and thinking of a thousand other things but the holes.

It's your decision. Don't be shy about making it.

same as ev else said about most contractors not understanding or even liking old houses and how to most effectively work with them.

first, rustic is very stylish these days. Laminate flooring is now being made to look "distressed" i.e. used and abused. You might find that scrubbing with hot ammonia solution to remove the grease, wood filler inthe nail holes, and a sanding is all you need... ,

That said I think there is such a thing as floors that are too far gone. My kitchen for example under the vinyl was totally hacked up with huge holes cut from where they put in the plumbing (never mind that everything was, and still is, totally accessable from the basement - I can't figure it out.) And a huge heavy black stain around where the sink used to be. If the stains were evenly distributed that would be one thing but not that huge heavy black blob in one area.

It is supposed to be not very difficult to remove the old and replace it with new. I am planning to do this in a back hallway where the floor was cut up & maybe in the upstairs apt. kitchen around the sink ( same black blob problem -otherwise its in prettyy good condition)

Probably best to use vintage wood flooring as color would be similarly aged & darker... but the new fir flooring I've seen in lumber yards doesn't look bad, not all that different from the old.

there are 250-year old pine floors in several houses in my neck of the woods, and all of them show wear - low spots in front of the hearth and the sink and the thresholds from generations passing over them, nail holes from rugs being tack down, pulled up, tacked down again (remember, before carpetting, rugs came up every spring or two, got drug out side, and whacked with a stick) places where dyes from the rugs bled into the floor, places where a wall or two was removed at some point...

and, one by one, those floors found owners who think of every mark as part of the history of the place, and instead of slapping wall-to-wall carpeting over the 'mess' (stone walls, and carpeting, just look dumb to me - go figure) they sanded down the worse rough spots, filled the biggest holes, and let the wood be wood once more.

I've got one bath where the sink leaked, the washer leaked, the toilet tank leaked...and they cut a hole in the floor so they could vent the dryer - into the basement. even after sanding, we had to stain it dark before the various wrongs muddled into a cohesive 'right'...

but I'm warning you, those floor sanders are no joke, and can drag petite people around like a power auger.

Most any wood floor can be restored to look good and perform well as a decorative walking surface. They look best when someone experienced with restoration does the work and applies the best products.

HAHA! That's what everyone told me about my kitchen floors!

They had concrete backer board screwed to them, but I got it all up and out. You don't even notice the screw holes/staples. You DO notice the two large cut marks that run perpendicular to the board, but even those have grown on me.

Ditto everyone else - especially regarding the floor sanders whipping you around (the edger was the worst in my experience).

Did we lose Mollie?

I added an addition on my house and redid the floors in the whole house, all pine. The original section of the house has 18-21" boards, all pumpkin colored pine. Some holes, cracks, black water stains. Beautiful!

I over heard the contractors one day saying, "nice addition, but those old floors!"

Some people don't see it the same way. I like the look, stains and cracks and all.

That's one of the things about older homes that some people like and some dislike: you're much more on your own when it comes to deciding what is wonderful (and worth keeping) and what is not-so wonderful (and best discarded, or possibly used for something else). Madison avenue won't help you, contractors won't help you, even old house publications won't necessarily help you.

The difficult thing is visualizing both how the item will look, and how you will feel about having it as part of your home. I certainly have no qualms about tearing off things that in my opinion have looked "butt-ugly" since the day they were built. On the other hand, it's the joy of bringing an item or feature of classic and lasting beauty back to life that makes owning old houses exciting, and gives you something irreplaceable by new construction.

Don't blame the contractors or manufacturers, they're just trying to run a business and need a certain level of conformity and commonality to make their business viable. I think Sombrieul Mongrel gave the you the best advice - do a small area to help with your "visualization" and then take as much time as you need (or is feasible) to figure out how much or little you will enjoy it.

After going threw all that truble of finaly finding the hardwood floor.Don`t you think you deserve the use of it ..So sanding and TLC will give you what you want.Even if you have to do a little bleaching and staining,filling holes with wooden plugs exc.If you love your house and want to reclame your kitchen floor GO FOR IT.

I'm sad but still here. My GC is into "new" but he does have a point in that I expanded the kitchen to take in a washing porch on the back. The original pine flooring only goes to where the washing porch starts so that would mean that a lot of my kitchen doesn't have the pine flooring under all the coats of vinyl. I have heart pine which has a red streaked board every once in a while (heart of the tree) and heart pine hard to get and really expensive. I am going to savage some original heart pine boards from a back bedroom to "fix" the dining room floor where we expanded the room and to "fix" the hallway floor where someone put a large floor return duct that I am moving into a wall. Then we will put regular new pine back in that bedroom. I guess I will tile the kitchen and I can also level the floor with the tile. Not what I had in mind but fixes several problems.

Mollie
I like keeping up with all the questions you have as most are something I'm running into on my redo of an old 1920s home. My whole house has long length wall to wall pine floors and we are about to begin working in the kitchen which has been moved around so many times that there are some major problems with the pine floors. The rest of the house except for the kitchen has real nice salvageable floors. We thought about the tile route but were determined to find some pine flooring that matched the stuff all ready down and not have the problem with a change in height between the kitchen and the rest of the house. By the time you put down cement board and whatever else you might need plus the adhesive and then the tile---well pretty soon you'd need a ramp for the grandkids to get over it on their roller skates. We were lucky (if you can call it that) I was busting out a wall to get behind the upstairs toilet to replace our main cast iron vent pipe and I ran into our flooring on the wall. I know, I know what you're thinking --that's not flooring --that's your old wood walls with the tacked on gauze and wall paper. Well we have that on all the walls downstairs. All of our second story walls are the same as the floor. Just better as they've never been walked on. I guess the builder got a better deal on the flooring than on the wall boards which are 1 X 6 and the flooring is 3 and something inches. So look around for more pine. I still believe it would be better than tile "ONLY" because of the transition in floor heights.
And by the way our old house has a claw foot tub in the upstairs bath. We haven't been able to use it because of the plumbing problems but I will climb in it this weekend and let you know how easy it is to get in and out.