Refinish wood floors. Check.

"Do you like the floors?"
"What do you think of the floors?"
"I love our floors."
"Look at it now. It's awesome when the sun shines in."

Just a sample of my husband's beaming dialogue over the first few days we moved into our house. He's pretty proud of his hard work, and he should be. Yes, we love our floors.

There were some dark days around here for a while. So much sanding, late nights—all nights, trips to the hardware store, stain samples, etc. After a lot of help (understatement) from incredibly kind people and a ton of long, difficult hours of work, the majority of our downstairs floors are finished!

Here are some grainy pictures of what we had on our hands after sanding. You can see what they looked like before here.

The stairs are not on our immediate to-do list. Their glory will have to wait.

We met a lot of different opinions when it came to these floors. Some said to dash it all and go with laminate. I tended to ignore those inputs. Sure, it would have been easier, but it would have been four times the cost and not as pretty. I'm glad there were an equal number of people encouraging us to go for the wood. We are so happy with the results.

It was dark when I took these pictures, but when the sun shines through those windows, the floor is golden. We love all the colors and divots from its age and use.

Ignore the blue x. That's a board that needs to be fixed from below to prevent more splitting.

For those who are curious, our floors are pine. I know. Another reason many said to just forget it. We weren't concerned though. So far it has held up to plentiful runs by my toddlers' huge Tonka trucks and the occasional toy thrown over the banister from a pleasing enough height to make an ear-shattering noise. We also like the beat up look because—hello—we live in a house that's over 150 years old. So one more dent isn't going to throw us into despair. We used Minwax Early American oil-based stain with an oil-based poly (semi-gloss). I seriously cannot stress enough how important it is to test your stains. We tried nine of the twenty-six colors offered by Minwax before finding just the right one. You never know how your particular wood will take to the stain.

One project down and about seven hundred to go!