That is their standard response to all floors. Maybe the rare floor finisher uses waterborne poly. The answer depends on what kind of finish appearance you want, what expectations for wear you have, and how "historical" you may be willing to be. The list of potential finishes, least-durable (requiring frequent maintenance, but giving a unique and more historically-authentic appearance, to hard, bulletproof plastic-y and inauthentic): Bare floor: ages naturally, but will water spot and stain most easily. wood worn away by foot traffic, especially with a very soft wood like white pine. No color will be brought out except by passage of time and whatever dirt/patina builds up and as the wood oxidizes. Wax finish: low protection from water and wear, must be renewed yearly or more, potential to bring out some color in the wood; colored waxes are now readily available. Will be a very authentic soft finish showing much of the natural wood color and texture. Wax does not form a film. Oil finish: Lots of oils out there, most oil finishes do not form a film, so the wood still looks bare/natural. Colored oil finishes are possible, but may blotch a bit at first, this usually will fade when 100% dry. Water spotting still possible, and wood can still wear down. The wood's surface is still taking the wear, but it has been fortified because the oil has penetrated it. Some harder-drying oils, like 100% tung oil, Australian Timber Oil, and I think Landark, are fairly good at hardening the wood surface and are the most durable oils. Wear spots can usually be masked by the application of more oil as needed. Shellac is called a "spirit varnish" because it forms it's protective beautifying film by the evaporation of the alcohol solvent that liquefies it. As the alcohol evaporates very quickly, shellac is a fast-drying finish. Some shellacs contain wax as an impurity. It is added as an extender, and it does help somewhat to achieve a smooth rubbed-out finish when buffed with steel wool. The wax/impurity also shortens the shelf life and lengthens the drying time, while making the finish less water-resistant. In my experience, it's the wax that makes shellac get white water spots. I only use de-waxed shellac, which can be purchased ready-mixed (Zinsser Sealcoat) or made by dissolving flakes in alcohol. I use a lot of shellac for various things, including some floors in my house (and fine furniture finishes). The formula I use for floors is to sand to at least 120, with the grain, by hand, then apply two coats of de-waxed garnet shellac (the darkest colored shellac that really brings out the beauty and gives a base color that's very pleasing on old wood/old house context) and put on 4 coats of the Sealcoat for the wear layer. Six coats of garnet to reach the same film thickness would be awfully dark IMO. Scratches in the shellac floor can be easily touched up without the need to sand the whole floor. Shellac will always bond to shellac, so there is never any problems with blistering or peeling. Because shellac has no odor after the alcohol evaporates, and you can put on 4 coats in a day, it's really great for bedrooms or people with chemical sensitivity. Old-fashion oil varnishes are sometimes used, but the reasons poly is preferred is because it has more benefits for floors because it is harder, so people don't mess with non-poly oil varnish much at all. The only benefit would be that it could theoretically be removed by a chemical stripper so future refinishing would be possible without further sanding. Oil varnish gives a deep amber color to wood, especially your old white pine. Problems include long drying time, softness, difficulty to touch up without sanding. Easier to re-coat than poly, though, because it will stick to itself with lower risk of peeling. Film-forming oil finishes, like Waterlox, are sometimes the most appropriate non-poly floor finish for historic floors. The huge selling point (what sold me) is the need for no future sanding. As historic flooring fabric is a finite resource, and can only take so much sanding until it is worn beyond use, eventually one must consider replacement vs. conservation. Waterlox makes the case that since it can be scuffed and recoated there is never any need to fully sand the wood, so a stable condition on the old floor can be maintained for a long time. Waterlox is a thinner oil=based varnish made with tung oil (I can smell it!) along with other resins and solvents. It has a _very_ strong odor when being applied, as you are getting the effect of the solvent and the material all at once. You need an activated charcoal respirator made for VOC's, or you will suffer the effects. It stinks, OK? The curing time, during which the odor can be detected, will be about a month. The bad, toxic aroma is gone in a day or two. I chose Waterlox for my old kitchen floor. It has held up pretty well; it's now been almost 5 years and there are some scuffed-looking areas where the chairs sit. It's been great for spills, water, general traffic, etc. So I recommend it unless you have chemical sensitivities for aromatic organic compounds, or nut allergies (!) Tung oil is from a nut, BTW. We then come to Polys and other hard commercial-grade floor finishes, some of which are technically difficult to apply and have severe health threats if the proper measures aren't observed while applying. I have such limited experience with any of these that I cannot comment as to any particulars, except to state that they do not have it within themselves to be touched up, and any damage to an area however small usually calls for the whole floor to be re-sanded for a total refinish, or the spot would still be visible. These finishes last an amazingly long time, requiring only cleaning maintenance, and if the floor in question were a new hard wood, it would make the most sense to use the most long-lived finish you could obtain. But in your circumstance it's probably obvious by now that I would not recommend such a finish for your historic wood floor. Sorry this was so long, but I wanted to weigh all the characteristics within your specific context. Casey

I have a very similar problem -- my son lives at home, sleeps much of the day away, and does very little to help around the home. Although, he is a sophomore in college and so far has maintained good grades despite what I think is excessive use of weed and not sure what other kinds of partying. He has minimal interest in me, his other family, or doing much except his studying and going out with friends. He is moody and very difficult to talk with about most anything. I am a single mom and I am supporting him through college except that he gets tuition paid because of his good grades so far. He did not live at home his freshman year, now he is home and I am saving money by not having to pay room and board. Yet, I see him in so much of what you all are saying. He contends that he cannot work part time because of his school load, but has made no effort to see if there is any work on campus or anyplace he could work. In the summer he found a short term job, yet put no effort into finding work after that. Many of the suggestions here are so helpful. I need to make it uncomfortable for him to live here unless he contributes. He seems to have minimal desire to change or make anything of his life. Getting through school seems to be his validation for doing little else. I do not like having to deal with the anger, name calling, put downs against me when I ask him to do chores and contribute to the home. It's difficult. Both my own guilt and he can be surly and very mean. Looking for more ideas and suggestions. My first attempt will be to require chores for spending money. It will likely not go well. There will be a barrage of insults hurled at me. Yet, I need to make a stand for us both. I have a brother who is still living off of our parents at 50 years old. I do not want this to happen. I want him to make something of his life. ellabright

For any finishing procedure it is best to practice the entire process so that you aren't surprised at the end. (I turned a whole maple floor pumpkin orange one time, recovering from that taught a lifelong lesson). Where you don't have a piece of wood that was used in the project you can either use something similar, or an out-of sight part of your bookshelf-- like the bottom or the underneath side of the bottom shelf. Color especially will change as you go through the different finishing steps. Set up a space with good ventilation, as little dust as possible, and excellent, very bright lighting from several sides, with strong sidelighting to allow you to see the surface in detail. Prior to staining, sand to P150-P220 grit using a random orbit sander. (At least P220 if hand sanding) Don't skip any grits and sand until the scratches from the previous grit disappear, they will never go away later, and will pop up like a sore thumb when you apply finish. Vacuum the surface with a brush head and then use a tack rag (either a traditional sticky one of a microfiber rag) to get all the dust you can. Stain, if you need to. I prefer using trans-tint dyes in denatured alcohol, but some people (I'm not one of them) have good success with oil stains. Very lightly hand sand with P320 to knock off any nits. Repeat with the tack rag. Apply a coat of gloss oil-base polyurethane from the can. Use either a good natural bristle brush (Purdy or Wooster make OK ones at $15-20 for a 2-1/2" brush.) Don't mess with cheap brushes, they are pure frustration. Throwaway foam brushes also work well with poly, and may well be your best choice. Buy several and throw them away rather than trying to clean them for re-use. Work quickly to get finish onto a surface, then finish with very light strokes as long as possible with the grain of the board (called "tipping off"). Then stop, don't mess with it any more. Watch for sags ad drips, and catch them before the finish starts to set up. They greatly complicate the rest of the process. Allow the finish to dry thoroughly. Usually several days. You want it to come off as dust when you sand, not globs of glue on your sanding pad. Sand with P220-280 using a ROS, or 320 by hand. Sand until most of your brush marks are gone, nits are removed and the surface is smooth. Do not sand through your stain! Vacuum and tack off your work, and thoroughly clean your work area, then tack off you project again. Apply another coat of clear gloss finish. Allow to dry thoroughly again. Most woods take 3 coats to give a good surface. If you have a good uniform surface you can stop there, otherwise proceed to a third coat. Sand by hand with P320 to take off the nits. This is your "money coat", so become fanatical about dust control and removal. After tacking I will also use a microfiber rag dampened with mineral spirits or denatured alcohol to remove the last of the dust. Apply a third coat of finish. Use gloss if that's what you are aiming for, use a semi-gloss or matte poly if you are shooting for that. The more matte finishes are gloss poly with small particles added to break up the light. They also, to a small extent, obscure the wood. I prefer to use only gloss and then buff to the desired finish level. Allow to dry. If you are happy with what you see you are done. I like to rub out these finishes to give them a smoother more pleasing surface. How much you do is a function of where you want the finish to end up. Getting to a high gloss is a lot of work, and I'm not going to get into that here. Allow the finish to dry completely-- 2-3 weeks at least in most cases, a couple of months is better. (So this is not good as a production method, better suited for weekend warriors) It won't work if the finish is still sticky at all. The idea is to burnish the surface. I start with 0000 steel wool and rub down the entire surface. Strokes with the grain are preferred, you will see shiny spots around the dust motes you missed, rub until these are all gone. Change pads as the surface fills, or re-fold to expose fresh steel wool. The finish should come off as a tiny bit of very fine white dust as you're doing this. You will notice that the surface feels much nicer than it did before. If you'd like a bit more shine you can wax the surface. Do not use grocery store furniture polish. There are a variety of products from woodworking supply places or Amazon that are primarily carnauba wax, softened with beeswax and solvent. Trewax and Briwax are two good brands. Run don't walk from products that don't tell you what's in them, promise miracles, or have any form of silicone. Antique cans of Simonize car wax are also good! Apply the wax to the whole piece then buff with a clean soft cloth (old t shirt or flannel). You will work up a sweat in this process, these are not "instant gratification" products. Once done you are finished and your project will stand up for years of use and abuse. Hope this helps. It's a lot of work and takes a long time, but the results are pretty decent and it's very satisfying. This post was edited by rwiegand on Mon, Jun 2, 14 at 10:09

@Garry Crabbs II - the 3/8" thickness is going to make this tricky. First off, MEASURE the amount of wood ABOVE the tongue. You can find a floor vent and pop it out to view the cross section of the wood. Measure the wood ABOVE the tongue. It MUST BE 3mm (1/8") or MORE to get a SINGLE sand/refinish event completed. The photos show you are not "almost down" to bare wood, you are AT bare wood. That means this floor "missed" it's sand/refinish date by 5-10 years. And we're assuming that is oil based urethane. That was VERY common in the 60's. Nothing special about it. You will need to sand this 3 separate times (each "pass" takes off about 0.5mm of wood which is why you NEED 3mm to start with). You will start with a low grit paper....like 60 grit. You will need a palm sander with the same grit to get into corners and close to walls. Then you will move up to your mid-range grit (80 grit is the next step up from 60). Again cutting in the walls and corners using the palm sander and the same grit level as the big machine). And then your final pass (assuming everything has gone swimmingly) you will finish with the highest grit level (100 grit is the next step when using the 60-80-100 grit system) doing the walls and corners once again with the palm sander. Some guys work with the 60-80-100 grit system. Others prefer the 80-100-120 grit system. Plan on purchasing MULTIPLE discs (assuming you use a drum sander) in each grit level. Some refinishers use 4-5 "papers" per grit level each time they do a floor. That means they use as many as 15 discs/pads for each home! Just be aware of that. You might want to find out which system will leave most of the dark stains that have penetrated the raw wood....and which system leaves the MOST amount of wood on your floor. That is rather important. You don't have a lot of wood to work with so you want to make sure you have something left over that you can live with for the next 20 years. Once the sanding is done, you chose a stain (if this is DIY I suggest you SKIP this stage) and then apply 3 coats of finish over the floor.