Just bought my first home. I want to at least clean the wood floors but I don't know what kind of wood it is or what kind of finish. There are a couple bad stains, under the carpets you see, that I would love to get some good ideas on how to remove, they are black colored stains. I will upload pictures of them later.

The boards are about 1" wide, in case the scale doesn't come through in the photos.

Anyway, thanks for any information you can give me about my floors.

--greg
Seattle, WA.

Your floors are plain sawn red oak, probably squared edge (no tongue and groove) thus the surface nails visible in the pics. A beautiful floor and worth restoring. Do not attempt this on your own, this would be a costly floor to replace if you mess it up. It is worth having a professional floor finisher come in to evaluate and quote on the proper procedure to bring these floors back to their former glory.
That whole system of floor never caught on in my area, so have not had much chance to see them. Most floors here are tongue and grooved, and blind nailed. What you have are all nice long boards and a skilled installer from the past. You aint gonna get that today unless you have some method of resurrecting my daddy or someone frome his era.

Thanks for the info and time Dennis.

While I save money for a restore (and any idea how much that runs?) do you have any idea if this has a finish on it? I have read that the way to clean a wood floor depends a lot on what kind of finish you have. So, up until now I have just used a damp dust mop. But, as time goes on I really need to get a deep cleaning in. I just don't know enough to tell if this has a varnish, wax or oil treatment (if anything).

Thanks again for you help.
--greg.

Well, it definitely has a finish of some sort on it. It's not oil, but could be urethane or wax, my guess is an older varnish type finish and damp mopping periodically wont hurt it. Heavier cleaning MAY be acheived by judicious use of mineral spirits.

many floors of that era were sealed then waxed. I think its is a regular t&g floor that someone went around and nailed 10 penny nails into the joist for what ever reason. what I would do is test for wax. if it is wax just clean and rewax. You can take a rag with mineral spirts and rub a spot on the floor. If it comes up shiney and kinda nasty then you have some wax. Dura Seal makes a wax/cleaner thats pretty easy to use and works great for waxed floors.

Ya, I thought about it being T&G and surfaced nailed into the joists at a later date to remove squeaks. But that wouldn't explain the consistant nail pattern at all the joints as well.