You may have better luck with this post in the old home forum or the wood working forum. I know they need a bit of sanding and sealing. But I know there is a way to sand them, orbital I think, which will smooth out the boards a little while taking off as little of the old character of the wood as possible. Then honestly I am not sure about the sealing. As it is not a floor I think you have more options for sealing. You can probably do an easy poly coat instead of a harder waterlox or shellac. I am not an expert, but I know there are tons of people in the other forums that would be happy to help. They have given me great advice on an old floor and an old mantle already. It is beautiful wood. I think all the nail holes would add a huge amount of character if you didn't sand them down to "new" looking wood. Good luck.

Hey Everyone! I just want to start off by thanking all of you for of your insight thus far. So here is my update: I was able to have an inspector come and look at the floor. He saw what we all saw, and agreed that it was a poor install. He took measurements of many of the gaps in which several were up to 1/16 of an inch wide. He took photos of many of the gaps with a mm based ruler and a X10 magnifying lens and attached them in his report. Over the hour and a half he was at my house, he noted there were hundreds of gaps and even found more problems with the flooring. More often than not they left no space between the wall and the floor for seasonal expansion and actually damaged my wall in the process in a few areas. This, he stated, was more or less a no brained and they would probably have to completely redo the floors. Now my insurance company agrees it is a poor install and actually paid for the Certified Wood Flooring Inspector. Though when we sent this to the Installer they said that based on their "terms of service" that I had signed, we needed to go through "their" Inspector. So my insurance company urged me to agree and go through their Inspection process and see what comes out. And wouldn't you believe it, he was there for about 30 minutes, inspected very few areas that I marked with the biggest gaps, and in the end deemed it an acceptable job via his report. He stated, "The largest expansion between the installed planks on the length was 1/64” (.015”)." And went on to say, "According to the NWFA installation guidelines, there can be up to 1/32” gap between the planks. A humidifier will help in closing the gapping throughout the year." This is kind of insane to me considering we sent them several photos as evidence that the gaps were 1/16" wide... so according to their logic not only did their inspector do a terrible inspection job... but the floor needs to be redone because the photo verified gaps we sent to them were over 1/32" wide... right? I have to get on a call with them next week and was looking for a bit of guidance on how I should handle this moving forward, especially before I discuss this with them. Also, there is a NWFA installation guideline for gap size (1/32 inch), but is there a guideline for amount (count) of gaps? Or do you know where I might find it? Thanks for all of the help everyone, I know I am writing novels here... but this has basically kept my house under construction for months now. I really appreciate your time.

If this is a site finished floor that has not been finished yet there will be a process of applying putty to knot holes. Thats pretty standard.

The time to get the 'fix' in (aka Buff and Coat) was a few years ago (like 10 years ago). Once you start seeing raw wood, you are into a full sand and refinish. A 'patch' finish can be done in VERY select situations. That would be in a section of 6ft x 6ft doorway that has TREMENDOUS damage yet the rest of the floor is 100% A-OK. Your situation is not what I just described. You are describing 50% of 3300sf of damage = 1650sf of damage. That's waaaaay too much for a patch. This needs a sand and refinish. Your floors are 2 inches thick. Compare that to a regular subfloor + hardwood. Subfloors are a minimum of 3/4" thick = 0.75". And a regular solid hardwood = 3/4" thick = 0.75". Now add those together: 0.75" = 0.75" = 1.5". Your wood floors are 2" thick. They already take into account the need for 3-4 sandings. Once they have given 80 years of life to the home, they will be 1.5" thick. Right now they are at the START of their 80 year journey. The need to sand and refinish has already been calculated into the life of the floor/home. Don't worry about the thickness. It could be that your GRANDCHILDREN will need to worry about it...but you do not. Go ahead and look at a full sand and refinish. You can work with a water based polyurethane for LOW VOC content. Using a 2 part water based polyurethane will give you another 20+ years without worrying. As you have already surmised, the finish is probably original. It is TIME for a full sand/refinish anyway. There is no way around it. It is part and parcel of living with and loving wood floors. Go ahead and bring in an NWFA Certified Refinisher to give you a comprehensive quote for a 2part water based finish. The VOCs will be very low and the ability to move back in will be quite quick (inside of 10 days).