I just bought an 80+ year old farmhouse that has 2" pine slat wood
floors.  These floors were in pretty wretched shape, but I was loath to
pay the $10,000 I was told to estimate for their renewal.  (Nevermind
the fact that the lack of square and plumb in the house would have driven
a contractor mad!)  Instead I went off to Home Depot and rented a floor
sander (the kind with the vibrating pads, not the drum sander!) and
sanded them down myself.  The sander and sandpaper pads costs about $100
for the day.  It was soooooo easy to do and actually kind of fun, truth
be told.  I felt very HGTV.  The sander took the existing finish off and
down to bare wood.  The floors were still not in good enough shape to
stain, so I painted them with porch paint covered by a couple of coats
of oil based floor polyurethane.
 
So far it is working out great.  The dog has yet to scrape it with her
nails and where the weasels "miss" the litter box is very easily wiped
up.  I figure I'll have to reseal every couple of years, but it is
infinitely cheaper than replacing/refinishing the floors.  If you are
even remotely creative you can do fun things with the paint too.  I used
two shades of beige and did a large checkerboard pattern (40" squares)
in the bedroom that turned out great.  I figured I was just going to
cover the floors up with furniture and rugs anyway.  It seemed a shame
to spend all that money on something I was going to hide.  It took about
a week from start to finish as I painted a coat and let it dry for a day
and then painted the next coat, etc.  I gave it a couple of days after
the last coat of poly before moving the furniture back on it.  The only
downside is that it shows fur and dirt, but I don't know if that's just
a wood floor issue or if I should have matched the paint to the dog and
weasels better.  A good swiffer run every morning seems to be taking
care of it.
 
Good luck!
 
Anne
[Posted in FML issue 5323]