Awww Ziva's my favorite. :)

I'm with you - don't change this over to laminate! I would MUCH rather have the natural wear and tear that happens to hardwood floors over time than the wear and tear that happens to laminate. Plus, they just don't make hardwood floors like this anymore, this small and laid out like this. They'll look beautiful refinished, and you have so many options for colors and finishes! We went with a matte dark walnut. In retrospect, I may have gone lighter - more toward a medium color - because the dark wood shows all our pets fur. But, when they're clean they look fabulous!

oh, keep and refinish, of course. beautiful floors

A regular sand/refinish = $4 - $5/sf. Adding in new wood can be done with the purchase of the wood (should be easy to match without a massive price tag) and then the cost of labour to weave in. Then the full sand/refinish takes place at the above cost per square foot.

Laminate, in a quality that is going to do your home the justice it deserves = $3.50/sf or more (some of the REALLY nice ones will be even more) and then cost of install is another $2 or so (not included underpad which can be $0.80 - $1.25/sf). If you do the math, the cost of laminate + install = $6.50/sf or so.

And you need ALL OF YOUR HOUSE covered in it. Compare that to the cost of sand/refinish + cost of wood + labour to install wood. I would bet you come out very close to the same price once all the bills are paid.

And wood ADDS value to a home. Laminate will not (a high quality laminate will not detract value...it just won't add anything).

I say add more of the same + sand and refinish everything. If you need to have the species verified, you can send away a cut of your wood to a lab that specializes in this. It is about $100 for a sample and takes 2-3 weeks to get the results.

We had a 115-lb lab (not fat, just huge) and hardwood floors. I trimmed his nails whenever I could hear him clickity-clack on the floor - once every week or two. We have a number of scratches on the floor, but not from the dog.

The cost
to refinish the floors may depend on the condition and size. I've paid $2/ft,
but the same guy charged another person only $1/ft. That was several years
back. He said mine were in worse shape, so he had to charge me more.

If uneven
means not level, then you may need more work than just refinishing. That would
be needed even if you want to put laminate over it, but then the neatness would
matter so much.

You can
find pretty cheap laminate, especially if you catch it on sale. Cheap laminate
and refinishing are likely to be comparable in price. It will just depend on
what you can find in the way of laminate vs. the cost to do your specific job.
I'm assuming you would do the laminate installation yourself. If you pay to
have it installed, then I think the labor will make that job more expensive.

Personally,
I think the hardwood looks much better than laminate. So, I would lean toward
refinishing if you intend to sell. Especially on the main floor.

Thank you for all the replies. We are not doing it ourselves, it would be part of major house renovations being done to include kitchen, guest & master bathrooms, and master closets, plus opening the kitchen to the den/family room, and enlarging the opening from family/den to the living room, and doing the floors all through, and paint all through.

The house currently has oak hardwood in all rooms except kitchen & bathrooms. The whole house is just about all packed up, POD in the driveway waiting to be filled, and the dumpster arrived.

I am still on the fence, I'll let you all know what we do.