Hello to all of you, and thanks for sharing your expertise ! I have a 1922 house with quatered oak floors (don't know if red or white), which have been sanded many times and are somewhat uneven in certain areas (I tried for a picture but it does not show well on camera). We know that the old finish was alcool based. In moving furniture and rugs, we discovered that the exposed areas of the floor have discolored badly over the 5 years we were there and it seems we need to redo the whole floor again (we intend to hire a professional).

I wanted to stain the wood in the mid-range tone (close to "early american") but from readings the posts, I am concerned that any defect on the floor will be "emphasized" by the stain and since I have only 1/8 of an inch left before the grooves start showing, I don't know how even we can get the floor...and I certainly don't want to put a new floor in. And I am looking for tough water-based products with low VOCs and UV - I don't want to redo those floors again. Is it true that you can stay in the house while using these products?

Should staining be attempted or am I tempting the devil... Thanks for any input/advice you can provide
Scooter

Hi Cork-Guy and thanks for your answer,

I have up-loaded 2 pictures in the gallery of this forum under "Pictures for problem solutions" - Uneven floor pict. 1-2 ( I apologize for not putting them here but did not know how to up-load them directly on this post) and I hope it helps.

The floor has valleys and ridges, but does not seem to have scratch marks. You can see them mainly where there are light reflections on the left side and at the door entrance in second picture. The ridges seem to be a sanding problem but in other areas, it seems as the open oak pores have absorbed an unknown finish and are harder then the areas of closed wood pores so that previous sanding has left the areas of grain in the wood higher, in the same wood board. I am hoping that in re-sanding the floor some of these problems will be diminished (it's an old house so I don't expect it to be perfect) but I don't know if staining will bring them to attention as they are not "patina" reflecting the life of the floor but more sanding problems that have occured. If I had more than 1/8" of an inch remaining, I would not be as concerned as I would expect the sanding to even the floor.

It's under the heading "Gallery" in the top right corner of this forum, under "uneven floor picture 1-2" (They are not great but the best I can do)

http://www.hardwoodflooringtalk.com/gal ... hp?album=3